Twelve bushfires remain burning throughout Australia's Victoria state as the U.S. said it will send 60 experienced wilderness firefighters to help tackle Australia's deadliest blazes on record, Bloomberg reported.
Two or three blazes are burning out of control, while cooler temperatures and lighter winds have enabled "good progress" in other regions, said Sally Bateman, a spokeswoman at the Country Fire Authority. The U.S. is sending firefighters in response to a request from the Victorian government, U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar said in a statement.
The death toll from the fires, which started a week ago, stands at 181 and the coroner is prepared for as many as 300 bodies, according to Victorian Police Commissioner Christine Nixon. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd on Feb. 12 promised to introduce an early warning system for bushfires that would send alerts to mobile phones and landlines in threatened areas.
"Australia is experiencing an unprecedented wildfire season due to record high temperatures, drought, high wind and low humidity," Salazar said in the statement.
The U.S. firefighters will be deployed for up to 35 days, Salazar said. They will join about 4,200 already battling the fires, including some from Canada and New Zealand, Bateman said.
More than 450,000 hectares (1.1 million acres) of land has been destroyed, according to the Country Fire Authority. Damage from the blazes may total more than A$2 billion ($1.3 billion), Standard & Poor's said this week. An estimated 1,834 homes have been lost, up from an earlier estimate of about 1,000, while about 7,000 people have been left homeless.
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