The warmest winter on record, followed by an unusually warm and dry spring in Australia caused Hundreds of fires along Australia’s east coast that burned at least 53 homes in Queensland yesterday.

On the west coast, a raging blaze just over a dozen miles from the Perth city center was fuelled by an unseasonably early heat wave and strong winds.

Firefighters had contained the Perth fire, which had burned at least about 4,500 acres destroying 18 homes and forced dozens of people to evacuate.

Reports indicate that It is not yet summer, but Australia’s fire season is well underway, in the latest example of how climate change is altering the rhythms of life across the Earth. Stoked by the El Niño weather pattern, it is the first dry and hot year since the summer of 2019-2020.

It is expected to be the worst fire season since that period, when nearly 500 people died from direct fire exposure and smoke inhalation, and tens of thousands of acres were charred.