Hey Pia, I know you're located in Australia and with all of this devastating news about the wild fires there I wanted to check in with you- has everything been okay where you are? Are you safe?
Western Australia is staring down the barrel of food shortages and medicine shortages though, because our only road link between here and the Eastern States has been on fire for likeβ¦idk, a week or so, and is still going. But we havenβt felt the impacts of that yet, and WA overall has been less severely affected than the Eastern States.
That being said, a lot of our friends and family are directly affected (including Glenβs brother), so weβre getting devastating, daily updates (sometimes more often). Theyβve run out of the P2.5 (asbestos level) masks in many places in the Eastern states, so people are breathing what is currently some of the most toxic air in the world. (ETA: Iβve just looked. Today, Canberraβs air quality is the worst in the world). Being inside doesnβt stop it, you can literally see the smoke haze inside any building. Other friends experienced their first 48.9C day (120F) yesterday.
In Western Australia, bushfire season only officially started 5 days ago, despite emergency/evacuation fires having commenced in late November. So we have the next two months to look forward to, and we are not looking forward to it.
If anyone is looking to donate re: the devastation, please consider:
WIRES animal rescue and;Rural Fire Service NSW
Itβs just tragedy after tragedy. Species of animals will definitely be extinct. Over 500 million animals have died (not including insects). Rainforests that have never caught fire and will never recover are gone.
So while weβre lucky, weβre also feeling the tragedy of it. Both the horrific, awful joke that is our government during this national disaster, and the apathy of so much of the rest of the world, given this started weeks and weeks ago. Itβs only really started properly hitting the national news in the past week and a half. I really appreciate you asking about it (and a shout out to @drowning-inthe-feels who also asked about it). <3
Iβm going to post a summary post after this, so that folks can know whatβs going on.