Normal text size Larger text size Very large text size The fire area across southern NSW, northern and eastern Victoria and the ACT is now approaching a combined 4 million hectares, with widespread damage forming a ring of fire around Mount Kosciuszko and its national parkland. It's estimated that more than 6 million hectares have burned around Australia since the fire season began. With no signs of respite in the near future, the size of the fires is likely to increase further. How did so much fire spread so quickly? November In mid-November, the first fire sparked up in the Snowy Valleys, just a few kilometres to the northern side of the Victorian border. There were several fires dotted around rural Victoria, both in the north-west and near the coast, but most attention was focused on catastrophic fires that were ripping through the Blue Mountains, the Hawkesbury and parts of northern NSW.


In particular, the Gospers Mountain fire, which started from a single ignition point in October became Australia's biggest ever forest fire. A firefighter stumbles after being hit and is helped back to safety while fighting the Gospers Mountain fire. Credit:Nick Moir By the end of the month, there were spot fires in the Currowan State Forest, north of Batemans Bay. A combination of weather conditions, heavy bushland and limited accessibility to remote fire fronts cultivated an environment for rapid growth. Within a week, the fire burned through 11,000 hectares - within a month, it was more than 300,000. The worst was to come just before New Year's. Early December Smoke from around the state lingered to the point where Sydney's air quality plummeted to the worst of any major city on Earth, as firefighters from provinces across Canada volunteered to give up Christmas with their families and flew to Australia to help with the bushfire crisis - the first of which arrived on Saturday, December 8. The fires were also about to reach the fringes of Sydney's metropolitan area, as the Green Wattle Creek fire ravaged towns and bushland south-west of the city - homes, and lives were tragically lost. Firefighters were overwhelmed by the flames of the Green Wattle Creek fire. Credit:Nick Moir


The Sydney Morning Herald's Chief Photographer Nick Moir was on the frontline on Thursday, December 5 and said the fire advanced so quickly everyone was forced to "run from its path". Fire crews spent the next day trying to backburn around the Warragamba region ahead of forecast worsening conditions the following week. The Currowan fire reached 50,000 hectares in size on the South Coast, but the worst was still yet to come. To the south-east of Canberra, the North Black Range fire, which began in the Tallaganda National Park the previous Tuesday, was at an emergency level and eventually reached nearly 40,000 hectares in size. On Monday, December 10, more than 500 firefighters and emergency workers fought two out-of-control bushfires in East Gippsland, with warnings - which would be proven correct - that they could burn for a long time. Mid-December An estimated 20,000 protesters took to the streets of Sydney on Wednesday, December 11, marching from Town Hall to Hyde Park and taking over George Street to demand stronger climate action. This came after ongoing smoky conditions prompting school closures and worksite walk-offs around Sydney.


Protesters accused the government of ignoring the science of climate change. Credit:Wolter Peeters Erratic weather resulted in 30 new spot fires around the state after lightning strikes and heat records began to tumble. Australia experienced its hottest ever day, with a national average temperature of 40.9 degrees recorded at weather stations around the country on Tuesday, December 17 - but that record only lasted until the following day's results were recorded. After Thursday's temperatures were measured, those three consecutive days were officially the three hottest ever experienced in Australia. The hot air mass that lingered over Australia shifted east with strong winds, making firefighting conditions more difficult. Most of southern NSW became engulfed with flames, and tragically two RFS firefighters - Geoffrey Keaton and Andrew O'Dwyer - lost their lives and a further three were hospitalised when their truck rolled as they battled a bushfire in Buxton, south-west of Sydney. Andrew O'Dwyer and Geoffrey Keaton, both pictured with their young children, died fighting fires at Buxton. Late December The fires in East Gippsland began to spread quickly. Just a couple of days before Christmas, residents in several small towns about 350 kilometres east of Melbourne were told to seek shelter as the now almost 37,000-hectare fire began "creating its own weather" on Saturday, December 21. As a result, Melbourne was blanketed in smoke on Monday, December 23, which would become a recurring theme for the state.


On the NSW South Coast, residents braced for a Christmas either away from their homes, or to never return at all as hundreds of homes were destroyed. More than 2000 firefighters spent their Christmas in the field. Just after Christmas, fire spread to the Bega Valley area for the first time - where it quickly made its way through thick state forest areas. Eventually, three fires merged with two others threatening to do so as well, and those five blazes combined to become more than 260,000 hectares in size. Volunteer firefighter Sam McPaul, pictured with his wife. Mr McPaul died at Jingellic on December 30. Fire conditions rapidly deteriorated near the border as well, as the Burrowa-Pine Mountain National Park was engulfed in flames, and many nearby towns threatened. On December 30, more tragedy striked the RFS when Samuel McPaul's vehicle rolled over near Jingellic, caused by an "extraordinary weather event" when a "fire tornado" lifted a 10-12 tonne Rural Fire Service truck and flipped it onto its roof, RFS Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons said. Loading For the entire week after Christmas, firefighters around both states and the nation's capital prepared for surging emergency conditions on New Year's Eve and would, unfortunately, be vindicated.