Heavy rain from a huge outback storm has eased Australia's bushfire threat after more than 50 days, but caused floods which left towns cut off and air patrols looking for tourists stranded in the now water-logged interior. Fires have been burning in six Australian states since November 2005, blackening more than 1.2 million hectares (4,600 square miles) of bushland, killing one, gutting dozens of homes and killing native animals and livestock.

Rain across the worst-affected state, Victoria, had dampened many blazes in the southeast, giving weary firefighters relief, but three bushfires in mountains in the northeast continue to burn out of control. "It's significantly helped us downgrade the fire status," Pauline Clancy, spokeswoman for Victoria's Department of Sustainability and Environment, told reporters on Sunday. "It's dampened down the fire activity and gives us an opportunity to really get in there and get those containment lines really strengthened," Clancy told reporters.

Rain is forecast over the mountain bushfires in coming days, but not enough to douse the big blazes. Fire experts have described some of them as "megafires", created in part by global warming and a drought which has provided an abundance of fuel, stretching thousands of kilometres. But while the rain, sometimes in record falls, eased the bushfire threat it caused flash flooding in three states, South Australia, Victoria and New South Wales, as well as in the outback Northern Territory. Major roads throughout South Australia's outback north have been closed due to flooding and some towns in the area will be cut off for days until floodwaters recede.

Seven times average
The flooded town of Hawker received a downpour of 150 mm in 48 hours, seven times its January average. Residents were using a bulldozer and grader to try to reach the local airstrip. "We've got no hope of getting anything in here," said resident Bradley Fels. "The only way you are going to get in here is by aeroplane."

Authorities in South Australia launched aerial patrols to ensure no tourists were stranded by the flash flooding, with reports of motorists being bogged as the normally dry, flat outback turned to a sea of mud. "We have had a few sightings of people stranded, but we've been able to access them from other routes," an emergency services spokeswoman told local radio. But many outback residents and farmers, who have been battling the worst drought in a century, welcomed the rain. "We've got a dam on the back of my place that hasn't seen water in it for five years. I think everybody's smiling," John Sitters, owner of the Flinders Ranges Caravan Park at Hawker, told Australian Associated Press.

The national weather bureau said this month that Australia appeared to be suffering from an accelerated climate change brought about by global warming. While the heavily populated southeast experiences its worst drought for a generation, the tropics and remote northwest are receiving unseasonally heavy rains accounting for more than Australia's yearly total average.
(Por Michael Perry, Planet Ark>< /a>, 22/01/2007)