#nswfires

Saw a few tweets on twitter from international people saying that us aussie people should stop begging for donations. To put this into perspective for you:

- our fires started in september 2019 in spring WAY before our fire season even begun.

- the government has cut the budget for volunteer fire fighters which means that they are mostly unable to purchase good quality uniforms and good quality breathing equipment to even protect themselves when on the front line of these ferocious fires.

- the government + national parks had ALL winter to back burn australia to limit the amount of bushfires but chose not to.

- each day is getting worse and worse. Every thunder storm with lightning that we get that doesn’t have rain causes more fires and is happening more frequently.

- businesses are closing and burning down. People are unable to purchase medication, fuel for their cars when fleeing their own town, food, running out of water + unable to buy baby food.

- around 23 people have died + over 20 people are missing. This is just in NSW + VIC and include 3 fire fighters who had loving families.

- over a thousand homes have been lost (around 1.4 i think?)

- canberra, the capital city of australia, has the WORST air quality in the world right now, in which it has killed one person and they weren’t even near any fires, the smoke got to them. The smoke from these fires have been reaching NZ since NOVEMBER.

- people have spent 3+ hours in traffic when fleeing their towns only to travel 2-7km’s and that’s not very far + some have spent days on the shorelines of australia either on boats or waiting for the navy or other australian defence teams to come pick them up, that’s how bad these fires are.

- towns are being wiped off the maps of australia.

- over HALF A BILLION animals (koalas, kangaroos + cattle mostly) have PERISHED in these fires. Koalas are already endangered and were already on the brink of extinction before these fires even started. Farmers have had to shoot their cattle because their injuries have been so severe and there’s nothing more they could do for them.

- one of australia’s most popular islands is nearly all on fire.

- over 4 MILLION hectares has been burnt and that’s more than the cali + amazon fires COMBINED.

- each day is getting more catastrophic than the last. Some people are given days to flee and if they don’t leave by a certain day they will probably not be allowed to leave at all.

- people are opening their own homes to 20+ completely strangers just so they have somewhere to stay.

We understand why you can’t donate and if you can we are very grateful for your donation. We are also very grateful if you even spread awareness by talking about it, rt’ing things, reblogging things etc, sharing links so others are able to donate. I’m sorry if we sound like we’re BEGGING for donations, we just want to be heard, helped and we want this to be over.

I will reblog with links that are helping our fire fighters + communities.

Here’s a few photos of conditions today in Nowra, Mallacoota, Merinbula, East Gippsland, Huskisson, and Batemans Bay. (shared by @ABCemergency’s Twitter)

Many residents in affected areas are evacuating to the beach/ocean after the fires have blocked off roads

Note that all of these photos were taken before sunset, there’s just a LOT of smoke

You cannot stick your head in the sand when an entire country is in crisis

The American dollar is far stronger than the Australian, so here is an article and tumblr post with links to how you can donate, even a small donation on the part of an American will go a long way here

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/dec/21/how-you-can-donate-and-help-the-volunteer-firefighters-in-australias-bushfire-crisis