Australia has been suffering through some of its worst wildfires since 2019 and 2020. At least one person has died, and while conditions are beginning to improve, some concerns are lingering.
For the first time in almost a week, Tuesday brought no emergency fire warnings to Australia's southeastern state of Victoria, home to the country's second-largest city of Melbourne.
At least a dozen major wildfires are still burning, and authorities are warning residents to stay alert.
Tuesday morning local time, Victoria's state government reported that more than 1,500 square miles of land had been burned. That's roughly the size of the U.S. state of Rhode Island.
More than 500 structures have been destroyed in the fires that were sparked by a massive heat wave. Temperatures have soared to beyond 111 degrees Fahrenheit in recent days — far above their normal range for this time of year.
Over the weekend, a different kind of extreme weather battered parts of the state of Queensland, in Australia's northeast.
Tropical Cyclone Koji pounded across the coastline in the northern part of the state with intense rain and flooding.
It's been about four months since Australiaʻs central government released a searing report on the country's national climate risk.
That document warned of “cascading risks” of what it called priority hazards that are likely to compound destructive impacts.
Some of those hazards included bushfires, flooding, and extreme heat.
