CANBERRA, Dec. 27 (Xinhua) -- The Country Fire Service (CFS) has warned that South Australia (SA) is tinder dry and unprepared for forecast catastrophic bushfire conditions.
Brenton Eden, the assistant chief officer of the CFS in SA, told News Corp Australia that Friday and Monday were shaping as days of significant concern as the state braces for another heatwave.
It comes only one week after almost 200 bushfires were sparked across the state amid record-breaking temperatures, which killed two people and destroyed more than 80 homes.
Eden said that residents of the areas hardest-hit by those fires, Kangaroo Island and the Adelaide Hills, have told the CFS that they were not ready to take action as fires approached.
"People are not prepared emotionally or physically for the responses they need to take in a hurry," Eden said.
"And then they get disoriented and they don't know what to do and that's when we see injuries and worse."
"It's tinder dry and ready to burn and that's what we're seeing at the moment."
Eden said that the worst of the fires in the Adelaide Hills and on Kangaroo Island, which have burned more than 42,000 hectares of land, would continue to burn into 2020.
"On these days now, we are seeing fire behaviour across SA, Victoria and New South Wales that we haven't seen and experienced for a long time," Eden said.
"These fires are now travelling immense distances and covering an enormous amount of the landscape before people are prepared either to defend their property or to get out."
