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The plume of smoke would cover Europe, west to east, experts have calculated as well as the width of South America<\/p><\/div>\n
People queue for hours for food with temperatures forecast to rise to danger levels again, in scenes likened to a war zone<\/h3>\n
Jane Dalton
\nINDEPENDENT<\/p>\n
Bushfires<\/a>\u00a0ravaging\u00a0Australia<\/a>\u00a0have now killed at least 17 people and\u00a0created a plume of smoke thought to be present over an area greater than that of Europe.<\/p>\n The government has deployed military ships and Navy ships and military aircraft were bringing water, food and fuel to towns where supplies were depleted and roads were cut off by the fires.<\/p>\n Authorities confirmed three bodies were found on Wednesday at Lake Conjola on the south coast of New South Wales.\u00a0More than 175 homes have been destroyed in the region.<\/p>\n An area of thick smoke covering nearly 5.5 million sq km (2.1 million sq miles) has started drifting over the Pacific Ocean towards\u00a0New Zealand<\/a>.<\/p>\n Antti Lipponen, a physicist and research scientist at the Finnish Meteorological Institute, said the plume was 14 times the size of Japan, and superimposing it over a map of Europe, showed it would stretch from Iceland to Turkey.<\/p>\n The size of the cloud symbolised the size of the emergency in southern Australia, where it is feared conditions could worsen further in the next 48 hours.<\/p>\n Forecasters predict very hot and windy conditions for the south on Friday, with temperatures again set to reach\u00a045C\u00a0or more, and dangerous bushfire conditions for eastern Victoria and\u00a0New South Wales<\/a>\u00a0(NSW) on Saturday.\u00a0Thousands of firefighters are\u00a0battling more than 100 blazes in the state of New South Wales (NSW) and nearly 40 in Victoria on Wednesday, with new fires starting daily.<\/p>\n A race against time is under way\u00a0to rescue by air or sea thousands of people who have fled to beaches on the country\u2019s south and east coasts, as well as deliver supplies.\u00a0Some 4,000 people in the coastal town of Mallacoota, Victoria, fled to the shore as winds pushed a fire towards their homes.<\/p>\n Victoria emergency commissioner Andrew Crisp told reporters the Australian Defence Force was moving naval assets to Mallacoota on a supply mission that would last two weeks and helicopters would also fly in more firefighters since roads were inaccessible.<\/p>\n \u201cI think that was our biggest threat in terms of what are we doing with the children if we need to go in the water to protect ourselves given the fact that they are only 1, 3 and 5,\u201d tourist Kai Kirschbaum told ABC Australia. \u201cIf you\u2019re a good swimmer it doesn\u2019t really matter if you have to be in the water for a longer time, but doing that with three kids that would have been, I think, a nightmare.\u201d<\/p>\n Supermarkets were closed and people were queueing for up to three hours to get food in some areas of New South Wales. On New Year\u2019s Day, it was estimated 50,000 homes were without power, as phone networks were down and fuel ran low. Some residents were forced to camp on wharves after multiple fires near Mallacoota, cutting off road access. Nearby, 100 people took shelter in a school.<\/p>\n Conditions cooled on Wednesday, but the fire danger remained very high across Victoria state, where four people are missing.<\/p>\n Since the fires started in September more than 1,000 homes have\u00a0burnt, with the blazes\u00a0destroying communities while wiping\u00a0out\u00a0wildlife<\/a>\u00a0in unprecedented numbers.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was like a war zone. Or something out of a movie,\u201d said Paul Murphy, from Lake Conjola.<\/p>\n More than a dozen people were reported to be trapped in the Belowra Valley, inland in NSW, after fires cut off road access to the area and wrecked homes. There were fears 600 cattle would die within days without emergency feed.<\/p>\n Pippa Biglia told\u00a0The Sydney Morning Herald<\/em><\/a>\u00a0her neighbour had been killed. \u201cIt burned through his place and in a matter of minutes it was at my mum and dad\u2019s house,\u201d she said. \u201cIt came from every direction and there was nothing anyone could do about it.\u201d<\/p>\n In the city of Bairnsdale in East Gippsland, Victoria, donations of clothes, blankets and long-life food were being collected for people who had lost everything. More than 200 homes in East Gippsland have been razed to the ground.<\/p>\n Even with three months of summer to go, the early start to Australia\u2019s summer wildfires has led authorities to rate this season the worst on record and sparked debate about whether Prime Minister Scott Morrison\u2019s conservative government has taken enough action on climate change. Australia is the world\u2019s largest exporter of coal and liquefied natural gas, but Mr Morrison rejected calls last month to downsize Australia\u2019s coal industry.<\/p>\n Up to 500 million mammals, birds and reptiles \u2013 including 8,000\u00a0koalas<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 have been killed, say ecologists from Sydney University, prompting fears entire species of animals and plant life may be lost for ever.<\/p>\n More than 300 baby flying foxes have been abandoned by their mothers trying to survive, experts said.<\/p>\n