MUCH of inland Australia sweltered as towns from Ivanhoe and Pooncarie in far-western NSW to Onslow in the Pilbara, Kerang in Victoria and Marree in South Australia hit 45C yesterday.
But even those temperatures can’t beat the searing conditions of 70 years ago, when records were broken over a period of four days through NSW, Victoria, the ACT and South Australia.
State record highs of 49.7C in Menindee in NSW and 47.2C in Mildura in Victoria, set in January 1939, still stand today, as do capital marks of 46.1C in Adelaide, 45.6C in Melbourne, 45.3C in Sydney and 42.8C in Canberra.
Through that January 70 years ago, 438 deaths were attributed to the heat and a further 71 people died in Victorian bushfires on “Black Friday”, the 13th.
The 70th anniversary of these maximum temperatures has provided the opportunity for sceptics to again question the theory of man-made global warming: if large increases in greenhouse gases are making the planet warmer, why have the records of 70 years ago not been overtaken?
David Evans, a former adviser to the Australian Greenhouse Office, the precursor to the Department of Climate Change, said that although events such as those of January 1939 were too localised to draw implications on global warming, the 70 years since these maximums were reached was enough to “make you sceptical”.
“The debate has changed,” he said. He predicted that by 2010, the only people who would believe in global warming would be “those who have a financial interest in it, the politically correct and those who believe in big government. Everyone else will think it’s a load of rubbish.”
Many climate scientists disagree. National Climate Centre head David Jones said the fact the maximum temperatures were set so long ago in no way disproved global warming. He said 1939 was a freak once-in-a-century event.
In the Mallee town of Swan Hill, Victoria, one of the hottest places in the nation yesterday at 44C, people did not care about the cause of the hot weather — they just tried to cool off.
For 18-year-old Allen Roberts, a Melbourne boarding school student home for the summer, there was only one thing for it: a splash in the waters of the Murray River with his brother Marcus and cousin Leeroy Charles. “We cooked today,” he said in the afternoon. “It feels like an oven out there. The wind seems to pick up the heat and just blow it in your face.”
Despite the soaring temperatures across much of Australia, firefighters yesterday brought bushfires near Port Lincoln on the South Australian coast and in Sydney’s north under control.
Families and businesses in Port Lincoln were left counting the cost of destroyed homes and infrastructure.
A Country Fire Service spokeswoman said firefighters worked overnight carrying out back burning. A southerly change during the night helped by pushing the blaze into control lines established by the CFS.
The fire was declared under control just after 9am yesterday, having burnt through 281ha, destroying three homes, a dog boarding kennel, numerous sheds and fishing industry property.
Betty Burner, 74, spent yesterday inspecting what was left of her house, dog kennels and cattery after the fire hit.
The blaze came down the hill and missed her property before a change sent it back to her house.
“It’s just down to the rocks at the bottom,” she said of her 90-year-old home.
Left with only the clothes on her back, Ms Burner said only eight dogs and two cats were able to be saved after she was told to evacuate. One dog died, one was missing and 23 cats, which she had bred, were burnt to death.
At Killara, in Sydney’s north, firefighters managed to contain a bushfire that came dangerously close to homes.
As temperatures reached the high 30s yesterday, and faced with further hot weather expected today, about 100 firefighters from the Rural Fire Service, the NSW Fire Brigades and National Parks and Wildlife Service continued their efforts to fireproof parts of the Garigal National Park, about 23ha of which has so far been burnt out.