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How many acres have bushfires burned in Australia so far?

Answer: 15 million.

Australian wildfire_shutterstock_1437869741
Shutterstock/JP Phillippe
The fires are so large that their smoke plumes are easily identifiable all the way from space. NASA has released a recent satellite photo that shows multiple massive plumes of smoke along the country’s eastern coast. 

The image comes from NASA’s army of satellites orbiting the globe and constantly taking photos. Captured once every 15 minutes, these images are analyzed by an algorithm using infrared data. It labels the images based on what it sees — cloud, fire, non-fire, water, missing data or unknown. This information is shared with fire management authorities around the world to use in their firefighting and fire prevention and mitigation efforts.

This information was also used recently by photographer Anthony Hearsey to create a visualization of all the areas of Australia that have been affected by the fires. The resulting image shows hot spots where fires are or were burning between Dec. 5, 2019 and Jan. 5, 2020. 

The fires, which began in October, have been exacerbated by hot, dry and windy conditions, which have been linked to a changing climate and warming global temperatures. The resulting smoke has been choking some of the country’s major cities, including the national capital of Canberra, in air quality levels that are more than 10 times greater than what is considered as hazardous.