Out of control Australia fires

December 12, 2006

Firefighters say Australia faces an extreme fire danger this summer after a drought that has turned many rural areas into tinder boxes. Scientists fear climate change will bring more frequent higher temperatures and less rainfall to the country. Bushfires are a regular feature of Australia's summer. In January 2005, the deadliest bushfires in 22 years killed nine people in South Australia. Four people were killed and 530 homes destroyed in Canberra in 2003. That same year, bushfires fuelled by drought ravaged a slice of Australia three times the size of Britain.