Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison on Thursday announced a detailed national inquiry into the recent devastating bushfires that killed 33 and scorched more than 10.3 million hectares (103,000 sq km) of land—about the size of South Korea.
Australia has, for months, been battling hundreds of blazes that began in September 2019—an unusually prolonged summer bushfire season exacerbated by three years of drought. The episode has been dubbed the “Black Summer bushfires.”
