© 2026 ABC News

Wildlife has been ravaged by the fires, with one expert at the University of Sydney estimating that more than one billion animals have died.

\"We haven't had fires of this scale and intensity before, so we are in uncharted territory,\" Mathew Crowther, an associate professor at the college who specializes in wildlife ecology and management, told ABC News in an email. \"It may take a long time for the ecosystems to recover, and some may not be the same, particularly if they have lost species.\"

At least 25 people have lost their lives and more than 2,000 homes have been destroyed across the country, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said earlier this week. Over 15 million acres have burned in Australia since the start of the fire season.

At 12:30am, 132 fires are burning in NSW, with 55 still not contained. All fires are at Advice. Challenging conditions for firefighters today with widespread Severe and Extreme fire dangers for parts of NSW. Total Fire Bans are in place for a number of areas. #nswrfs #nswfires pic.twitter.com/7xv6UIrsit

— NSW RFS (@NSWRFS) January 9, 2020

The country's fire season typically runs from December to March, but these fires began in September.

New South Wales, a state that has been particularly hard, is bracing for extreme conditions over the weekend that will create \"erratic and dangerous\" fire behavior along the southern coast, according to the state's Rural Fire Service.

As of Thursday, 132 fires were burning in New South Wales and 55 of those were still contained, according to the fire service.

The State Department on Wednesday raised its travel advisory for Australia to Level 2 on its four-level scale, urging travelers already there to exercise increased caution and tourists considering a trip to postpone.

ABC News' Conor Finnegan contributed to this report.

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