Record temperatures across southern Australia have started to cool, reducing the danger from scores of raging wildfires but likely bringing only a brief reprieve from the summer’s extreme heat and fire risk.
Australia had its hottest day on record with a nationwide average of 40.33 Celsius, narrowly breaking a 1972 record of 40.17C.
Tuesday was the third hottest day at 40.11C. Four of Australia’s hottest 10 days on record have been in 2013.
“There’s little doubt that this is a very, very extreme heat wave event,” Bureau of Meteorology manager of climate monitoring and prediction David Jones said.
“If you look at its extent, its duration, its intensity, it is arguably the most significant in Australia’s history,” he added.
One family clung to a jetty for more than two hours while the fires raged around them. Tammy Holmes had to tread water with her five grandchildren.
Mrs Holmes’ husband Tim took photographs showing Charlotte (2), Esther (4), Caleb (6), Liam Walker (9) and Matilda (11) huddled together.
Their mother Bonnie Walker said: “We just waited by the phone and received a message to say that mum and dad had evacuated, that they were surrounded by fire, and could we pray. So I braced myself to lose my children and my parents.”
They escaped the fire with a dinghy, dragging it 300 metres to cleaner air.
No deaths have been reported in the wildfires, although around 100 people have not been accounted for since last week when a fire destroyed around 90 homes in the Tasmanian town of Dunalley, east of state capital Hobart.