Satellite Images Show Australia's Wildfires (12 pics)

1

The Himawari-8 satellite photographs the Western part of the Earth once every 10 minutes.

2

Australia’s bushfires and their smoke plumes are now easily visible from space.

3

After an abnormally long and expansive drought, the fires have spread over vast areas of the country.

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It’s hard to wrap your head around the devastating scope of the fires.

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The smoke plume is now the size of half of Europe.

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And it’s traveling further, clouding up the skies in New Zealand and Chile.

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As of January 6th, 69 of 136 fires burning across New South Wales are still not contained.

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Roughly 23,000 square miles of Australia have been burned.

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And this is the Himawari-8 satellite’s view of the bushfires and smoke clouds on January 2.

10

Here’s a near-infrared view of eastern Australian hotspots of bushfires on November 7.