Besides the immediate death (180) and destruction from the fires raging in south eastern Australia there is this:

VICTORIA’S bushfires have released a massive amount of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere – almost equal to Australia’s industrial emission for an entire year.

Mark Adams, from the University of Sydney, said the emissions from bushfires were far beyond what could be contained through carbon capture and needed to be addressed in the next international agreement.

“Once you are starting to burn millions of hectares of eucalypt forest, then you are putting into the atmosphere very large amounts of carbon,” Professor Adams said.