Thousands of Australians forced from their homes by rampaging bushfires now find themselves stuck in makeshift camps, fearful for the future and turned refugees in their own country.

On golf courses, cricket ovals and showgrounds -- anywhere with a minimal amount of combustible tree cover -- Australians are sheltering from a climate-fuelled disaster.

At the Catalina Country Club in Batemans Bay, New South Wales, rows of caravans, 4x4s, pick-up trucks and tents are pitched cheek by jowl.

The golf club's dining room has been converted into an evacuation centre.

Instead of players supping a beer after a summer's day of play, elderly displaced ladies huddle around cups of tea and play cards to pass the time.

Stacks of donations -- food, clothing, water -- are piled high and there is a steady stream of people walking in and out.

Some new arrivals quip that they are refugees.

But even in a country accustomed to bushfires and which prides itself on resilience in extreme conditions, the last few days, weeks and months have been shocking.

Towering blazes have turned the sky black and choking smoke has covered whole cities -- as well as parts of neighbouring New Zealand and New Caledonia -- amid searing images of families forced to wade into the ocean for safety.

For many, the future is riddled with uncertainty: about whether their homes still stand, when they can return and -- with months of summer still to go -- about when all this will end.

Many are facing this uncertainty while dealing with the trauma of what they have lived through.

Narelle Coady, 54, took refuge at a Batemans Bay beach on Saturday when her home came under threat for the second time in five days.

"We defended on Tuesday and it was just too scary," she told AFP. "Really bad, couldn't breathe. Oxygen gone. It was horrible."

"That was my first and last time."

Batemans Bay motel owner Justine Donald, 40, evacuated her home on New Year's Eve in a scene she described as looking like "the end of the world".

"The town went black," she said. "It was black, orange and so thick that to breathe it in, you thought you were going to suffocate."

"That frightened me so much for my life that now I don't even think about the properties."

"It's devastating," she said, at times becoming tearful. "My main thing is I just want to be alive and for all of us to be safe."

"If that's going to happen again today, I'm going to need a good big bottle of wine and hopefully be stuck inside with towels under my doors because I'm not going to go outside into that again."

Mick Cummins, 57, also recalled New Year's Eve when he left his home as fires tore up the east coast.

"Hellfire came over the hill," he said. "We just sat there and watched explosion after explosion, the bowling club went up, the houses down the street went up."

He remembered the fires from 1994 as particularly bad. But compared with this year, they were "just a barbeque", he said.

"We're here until we can go home," said his wife Ulla. "They're saying we're probably not going to have power until next week. And if we've got no power, we've got no phone service either. We're stuck."

Wes Moreton, a 30-year-old father of five left his home, but then was forced to leave his place of refuge as the fire front moved north.

He took no chances and headed with his family to Sydney. Like so many, he is unsure whether they will have a home when they return.

"Fingers crossed it's still standing," he said.

Military reservists called up as thousands flee Australian fires
Batemans Bay, Australia (AFP) Jan 4, 2020 - Up to 3,000 military reservists were called up to tackle Australia's relentless bushfire crisis on Saturday, as tens of thousands of residents fled their homes amid catastrophic conditions.

Temperatures soared above 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) and gale-force winds fanned hundreds of fires, many of which are already burning out of control across the country.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced the largest military call-up in living memory to assist thousands of volunteer firefighters who have been battling blazes for months on end.

"Today's decision puts more boots on the ground, puts more planes in the sky, puts more ships at sea," said Morrison, who made the announcement after being pilloried for his response to the deadly disaster.

A state of emergency has been declared across much of Australia's heavily populated southeast and more than 100,000 people have been told to leave their homes across three states.

Thousands heeded that call Friday, abandoning summer holidays and piling into cars that clogged the highways linking southeastern coastal towns with the relative safety of Sydney or larger towns.

"In relation to the (worst-case scenario) projections we had this morning, unfortunately they are coming to fruition," New South Wales Premier Gladys Berejiklian told reporters.

New South Wales Rural Fire Service commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons added that "strong winds and hot temperatures" were expected to continue into the evening.

Several emergency warnings were issued Saturday, including one blaze southwest of Sydney that is feared could reach the city's outskirts.

Sydney recorded its highest-ever temperature of 48.1 degrees Celsius (118.6 degrees Fahrenheit) in the western suburb of Penrith, and the nation's capital Canberra hit 42.9 degrees Celsius, also an all-time record, a Bureau of Meteorology spokesman said.

Temperatures in both cities could rise further, he added.

Since late September, more than 20 people have died, more than 1,500 homes have been damaged and an area roughly twice the size of Belgium or Hawaii has burned.

The latest fatalities came on Kangaroo Island -- a tourist haven off the coast southwest of Adelaide -- when two people were trapped in a car overrun by flames.

Fires there have "taken out much of the Flinders-Chase National Park", according to South Australia premier Steven Marshall.

- 'Hellfire came over the hill' -

Ahead of the coming storm, an eerie calm settled over the smoke-shrouded town of Batemans Bay, a four-hour drive south of Sydney, where supermarkets, shops and the pub were all shuttered.

The only activity in the usually bustling tourist hotspot was at an evacuation centre, where hundreds of locals forced from their homes were sheltering on an open field in tents and caravans.

Mick Cummins, 57, and his wife fled to the evacuation centre when fire ripped through his rural town on New Year's Eve.

"We said this is too tough for us, let's get out. We went to the beach and then hellfire came over the hill," he told AFP.

"I was here in the '94 fires. I thought that was bad. That was just a barbeque" in comparison, he said.

The scale of Australia's unprecedented months-long bushfire crisis has shocked not just locals but the world.

In the small town of Mallacoota, Australia's navy was called in to evacuate around 1,000 people trapped by fire and forced to wait for days on the foreshore.

The first of two ships carrying families, pets and a few belongings arrived near Melbourne early Saturday.

Eloise Givney, 26, escaped from the blazes further up the coast with a police escort after she and a large group of family members spent four days isolated without power, phones or internet.

"The fire came within about 50 metres of us and we drove through fire, because there's only one road in and one road out," she told AFP, adding the flames soared 15 metres (50 feet) high on either side of the road.

"We've been stuck without power for four days now. We haven't been able to feed the kids -- we've got five kids with us -- and we ran out of food about a day ago."

Related Links
Forest and Wild Fires - News, Science and Technology

Tweet

Thanks for being here; We need your help. The SpaceDaily news network continues to grow but revenues have never been harder to maintain. With the rise of Ad Blockers, and Facebook - our traditional revenue sources via quality network advertising continues to decline. And unlike so many other news sites, we don't have a paywall - with those annoying usernames and passwords. Our news coverage takes time and effort to publish 365 days a year. If you find our news sites informative and useful then please consider becoming a regular supporter or for now make a one off contribution.
SpaceDaily Contributor $5 Billed Once credit card or paypal		SpaceDaily Monthly Supporter $5 Billed Monthly paypal only

Australia orders mass evacuation of fire-ravaged towns before heatwave
Sydney (AFP) Jan 1, 2020
Thousands of tourists have been given less than 48 hours to evacuate fire-ravaged coastal communities as Australia braces for a heatwave Saturday expected to fan deadly bushfires. Catastrophic blazes ripped through swathes of the continent's south-east on New Year's Eve, killing at least eight people and stranding holidaymakers as seaside towns were ringed by flames. The New South Wales (NSW) Rural Fire Service on Thursday morning declared a "tourist leave zone" stretching about 200 kilometres ( ... read more