Australia is currently battling against a swathe of wildfires.

Three fires in the state of Victoria have now joined to form a single enormous blaze 23 square miles across, covering a marginally larger area than Manhattan.

The fires worsened going into Saturday due to high winds and soaring temperatures.

Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.

A wildfire the size of Manhattan is currently burning through the Australian state of Victoria, CNN reports.

The blaze was formed when three separate fires joined up on Friday night, resulting in a blaze 23 square miles wide. The New York borough of Manhattan is just under 23 square miles in area.

Going into Saturday strong winds and soaring temperatures exacerbated the wildfires which have been burning across southeast Australia since late July. Australia's capital city Canberra experienced its hottest day on record with highs of 44 degrees Celsius (111 degrees Fahrenheit) on Saturday, and Sky News reports winds are reaching up to 80 mph.

By late on Friday evening local fire services counted 14 fires in Victoria that were at emergency or evacuate warning levels, while the neighboring state of New South Wales counted 11, Reuters reported. In total more than 150 fires are burning across both states.

"There are a number of fires that are coming together — very strong, very large, intense fires that are creating some [...] fire-generated thunderstorms," New South Wales Rural Fire Service (RFS) Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons said in a briefing on Friday evening, per Reuters.

Fire-generated thunderstorms, also known as pyrocumulonimbus thunderstorms, are created when the hot air created by wildfires pushes up into the atmosphere forms a cloud that then meets a colder front of air from outside the fire, generating lightning.

"Unfortunately we've still got many hours to go of these elevated and dangerous conditions," Fitzsimmons added.

The fires are confirmed to have killed 23 people so far, and 1,500 homes across Victoria and New South Wales have been destroyed.