Horrifying photos of Australia (before and after) that show how much damage the fires have done so far!

The flames raging across Australia have destroyed homes and wiped out entire cities. Since the start of the 2019 fire season, 10 million hectares of land have burned across the continent! For comparison: the state of New South Wales alone burned about 5 million hectares of land, which is larger than the Netherlands!

According to ecologists from the University of Sydney, it was in New South Wales that the consequences of the fire suffered approx half a million animals, several million of them have probably already died. This list excludes insects and frogs, which means the real number is much higher. Ecologists are also very concerned about the future of unique and endangered wildlife on Kangaroo Island, where the fires are until now already killed thousands of koalas. They destroyed 155 thousand hectares of land (which is about a third of the entire area of the island). Most of the fires affected the Western Biodiversity Zone.

The organization Kangaroo Island Land for Wildlife has eight private lands where endangered species of animals are protected, including dunnarts, goannas, beaked hedgehogs, bandicoots and black cockatoos. "People call this place Noah's Ark. The island is a refuge. We haven't seen such a big fire in a long time," ecologist Heidi Groffen told The Guardian. Even the cameras that were used to monitor the events were steps.

To help you understand the destructive power of fires in Australia, we have something for you "before and after" photos of the affected areas.

Kangaroo Island

Tathra Beach, New South Wales

The coast before and after it was covered by smoke and soot from the surrounding fires. The black debris in the photo below is a mixture of charred wood and soot that washed ashore.