Americans shocked at size of Australia......

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Environment
The size of Australia shocks America in bushfire map comparisons
JANUARY 7, 2020 2:38PM
Conditions in the nation's bushfires are worsening with fire tornados spotted and nearly half a billion wildlife impacted.

Stephanie Bedonews.com.au
Aussies know just how big our country is and most of us know how much of it is currently burning.
But it seems our American friends don’t.

“I didn’t realise Australia was so large! Is this to scale?,” one man asked on Twitter when science host Kyle Hill posted a map of the bushfires compared to the size of the US.


“Wow. I honestly never realised it was that large of a land mass. This is eye opening.”

Many people said the map put the fires into perspective for them.

“Damn, is that actually to scale?,” wrote another person.

“Australia is exactly the same width as the USA??,” wrote someone else.

“Wholey Crap! It is!!”

“Australia is as large as the US? Didn't know that,” wrote another woman.


“And good lord what is happening, the whole continent truly is burning.”



A tweet from ABC News attracted a similar response.

The ABC reported how the raging fires have burned over 12.35 million acres of land - with at least 24 people killed and more than 2,000 homes destroyed by the blazes.

“The size of the fires across the country are twice as large as the state of Maryland and bigger than several other states, including Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts and New Jersey,” they wrote.

“A superimposed map of Australia over the United States shows the scale of the regions affected by the massive wildfires that have spread Down Under.”


Meanwhile scattered showers should continue to fall on fire grounds until midweek as attention turns to getting towns up and running.

In NSW, more than 13mm fell at Merimbula on Monday, 9.8mm at Bega and 2mm at Nowra and Lake Conjola.

In Victoria, the rain that is giving bushfire-hit areas some much-needed relief will continue throughout Tuesday.

Monday saw all emergency warnings being downgraded, while 14 active fires continued burning statewide.

There’s “real potential” for a ‘megablaze’ to form from three fires along the NSW-Victoria border today, according to fire chiefs.

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