Over the past week, my timeline has been flooded with information about Australia being on fire. Thousands and thousands of residents have been evacuated as bushfires have reached Sydney, turning the skies blood-red. The coastline towns in New South Wales and Victoria have been covered in the flames, causing thousands to leave their homes. Some are stuck behind fire lines, trapped without power or cell service.

But what has caused this sudden onset of wildfires? It's been a combination of the early start to Australia's summer wildfires, drought, and global warming — it's the country's hottest and driest year on record. These wildfires have been catastrophic to the country's wildlife, killing nearly 500 million birds, reptiles, and mammals in New South Wales alone. Chris Dickman, a Sydney University ecologist told the Sydney Morning Herald, that bats and insects are excluded from his estimate, making the toll on animals much greater.

The Associated Press reports that 12.35 million acres of land in Australia has been burned. For comparison, Maryland is roughly 8 million acres and Massachusetts is 6.7 million acres. So the amount of land that has been burned is about the size of both of those states, respectively.

These fires have been happening since September. The death toll from these fires has now risen to 24. Authorities have said mass extinctions of residents living in at-risk areas in New South Wales and Victoria this week has prevented a major loss of life.

Over this past weekend, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced that 3,000 army, navy, and air force reservists will be deployed to the battle against the fires. This is the first time that this has happened in Australian history. Morrison has also committed $14 million to leasing fire-fighting aircraft from overseas. He also spoke in a press conference saying the "ferocity and the absence of dousing rains that would normally bring a season like this under control is nowhere in sight."

Morrison has been heavily criticized by the Australian media due to his errors in handling the disaster. He resisted national intervention prior to this weekend, despite the fires been ongoing since September. He even vacationed in Hawaii as the fires escalated in December.

Thousands of firefighters and civilians have tried to contain the fires, but the flames have continued to burn out of control. The only hope is that Australia will be able to control their wildfires before there will be a devastating loss to the wildlife and towns.