World faces megafire threat - expert

By Rob Taylor
January 19, 2007 01:35pm

THEY burn like fire hurricanes on fronts stretching sometimes thousands of kilometres and with a ferocity that explodes trees and makes them impossible to extinguish short of rain or divine intervention.

Bushfires like those that had raged through Australia's southeast for two months and struck Europe, Canada and the western US in 2003 were a new type of "megafire" not seen until recently, a top Australian fire expert said today.

"They basically burn until there is a substantial break in the weather, or they hit a coastline," Kevin O'Loughlin, chief executive of Australia's government-backed Bushfire Cooperative Research Centre, said.

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