World Fears that Australia bush fires could merge into 'megafire' outside Sydney -CNN

[abujagirl]

Australian residents lived in fear of a "megafire" Monday as dozens of bush blazes threaten to converge after already consuming thousands of hectares of land.

Officials also warned that a smoke cloud over Sydney may affect residents' health, as the broken promise of rain may make firefighters' already daunting task more difficult.

"The fuel bed is very, very dry. We've had a series of high wind, high temperature, low humidity days. That causes fires to run quite hard. For instance, the fire that started last Thursday ran 35 kilometers in one day," said Stuart Midgely, a New South Wales Rural Fire Service incident controller and the top coordinator for the Blue Mountains blaze.

Read more at http://edition.cnn.com/2013/10/21/world/asia/australia-fires/index.html?hpt=hp_t1