Military exercise sparked big Australian wildfire

Fire officials defended Australia’s defence department on Thursday after investigators revealed a military training exercise ignited the largest of the wildfires that have torn across the nation’s most populous state over the past week.

The Rural Fire Service said on Wednesday that one of the more than 100 fires that have burned since last week began at a Defence Department training area as a result of “live ordnance exercises”. The fire it sparked near the city of Lithgow, west of Sydney, has burned 47,000 hectares and destroyed several houses, but no injuries or deaths were reported in the blaze.

In a statement, Acting Defence Minister George Brandis said the military was co-operating with investigators.

Rural Fire Service commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons said the defence department’s actions were obviously an accident.

“It wasn’t deliberate; it was a side effect of a routine activity, it would appear, and clearly there was no intention to see fire start up and run as a result of that activity,” Fitzsimmons said. “There is no conspiracy here”.

The fires have killed one man and destroyed more than 200 homes in New South Wales state over the past week. Sixty-five fires were still burning on Thursday, with 24 out of control, though all emergency warnings had been lifted.