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Australia is no stranger to wildfires, but this season has been unprecedented in scale and intensity - and the summer is far from over. This country's deadly fires have been fueled by a combination of extreme heat, prolonged drought and strong winds. The country is in the grip of a heatwave, with record-breaking temperatures over the last three months. In mid-December, the nation saw the hottest day in history - the average temperature was 41.9 degrees Celsius. These conditions, which show few signs of abating in the next few weeks, have been accompanied by brisk winds which fan the flames and push the smoke across Australia's major cities. Authorities say that wind speeds have been recorded at 60 miles per hour. All this follows the country's driest spring since records began 120 years ago, with much of New South Wales and Queensland experiencing rainfall shortfalls since early 2017. Trees, shrubs and grasslands have turned into the perfect tinder for flames.
Bushfires are a regular feature in Australia's calendar - often triggered by natural causes such as lightning strikes - and cannot be blamed on climate change or rising greenhouse gas emissions alone. But experts say that the changing climate is the key to understanding the ferocity of this year's blazes - hotter, drier conditions are making these phenomena longer and much more dangerous. And Australia's climate is definitely changing. According to the country's Bureau of Meteorology, temperatures have already risen by more than one degree Celsius since 1920 - with much of the increase taking place since 1950.
So far the response has been largely reactive - aimed at evacuating residents to safety and stopping the blazes from spreading. Australia relies on hundreds of thousands of volunteer firefighters, who have been working around the clock to try and bring the fires under control for months. But in the long term, experts have said that there should be a review of building standards in bushfire zones to create resilient homes and larger buffer zones between the bush and properties.
(Adapted from https://www.telegraph.co.uk/)
Choose an option (A, B, C, or D) that best answers each question.
Which of the following best reflects the main topic of the passage?
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