November 12, 2019

The Photos of Wildfires Raging Across Australia Are Devastating

More than 150,000 hectares of land have burned.

Peter Parks/AFP/Getty

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Residents of Sydney, Australia, are bracing for the worst as catastrophic bushfires rage across the state of New South Wales. Though Australia’s summer fire season has just begun, 150,000 hectares of land have already burned in one fire alone, the Sydney Morning Herald reports. Since Friday, the fire has killed three people and destroyed 170 properties.

Australia’s Prime Minister Scott Morrison has defended the coal industry and shown indifference to climate change, even as extreme heat has intensified the fires blazing in his country. On Monday, he tweeted, “Everything that can be done is being done to prepare for today’s incredibly dangerous fire conditions in NSW & Qld.”

Meanwhile, these photos reveal the devastation on the ground:

A fire rages in Bobin, 200 miles north of Sydney, on November 9.

Peter Parks/AFP/Getty

A bushfire burns outside a property near Taree on November 12.

Peter Parks/AFP/Getty

Residents defend a property from a bushfire at Hillsville near Taree, about 200 miles north of Sydney, on November 12.

Peter Parks/AFP/Getty

Firefighters try to save houses from an encroaching bushfire in New South Whales on November 8.

Dean Sewell/The Sydney Morning Herald/Getty

A burnt-out vehicle sits by the roadside after fires swept through bushland and properties near Macksville in New South Whales on November 11.

Wolter Peeters/The Sydney Morning Herald/Getty

Fire and Rescue responds to a bushfire burning out of control in New South Whales on November 10.

Wolter Peeters/The Sydney Morning Herald/Getty

Images from the fire have also spread across social media (and, fortunately, most images seem to be real, unlike the viral photos that spread after the Amazon fires):

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

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