Australia’s New South Wales Sweats through Heatwave, Faces ‘Extreme’ Bushfire Risk

A view of the Anzac Bridge and Sydney Tower Eye at sunrise in Sydney, Australia, March 14, 2025. (Reuters)
A view of the Anzac Bridge and Sydney Tower Eye at sunrise in Sydney, Australia, March 14, 2025. (Reuters)
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Australia’s New South Wales Sweats through Heatwave, Faces ‘Extreme’ Bushfire Risk

A view of the Anzac Bridge and Sydney Tower Eye at sunrise in Sydney, Australia, March 14, 2025. (Reuters)
A view of the Anzac Bridge and Sydney Tower Eye at sunrise in Sydney, Australia, March 14, 2025. (Reuters)

Australia's New South Wales on Sunday sweated in a heat wave that raised the risk of bushfires and prompted authorities to issue a total fire ban for state capital Sydney.

New South Wales, coming to the end of a high-risk bushfire season that runs until the end of March, was a focus of a catastrophic 2019-2020 "Black Summer" of wildfires that destroyed an area the size of Turkey and killed 33 people.

On Sunday, the nation's weather forecaster said temperatures would be up to 12 degrees Celsius (21.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above average in some areas of the state, with temperatures in Sydney, Australia's most populous city, set to hit 37C (98.6F).

At Sydney Airport, the temperature was already 29.3C (84.7 F) at 9:30 a.m. local time, more than three degrees above the March mean maximum temperature, according to forecaster data.

Gusty winds, "hot conditions and low relative humidity will result in extreme fire danger over the greater Sydney region," the forecaster said on its website.

The state's Rural Fire Service said on X that a total fire ban was in place for large swaths of the state including Sydney due to the forecast of "hot, dry and windy conditions".

In neighboring Victoria state, a home was destroyed in a bushfire on the outskirts of Melbourne that was being battled by around 200 firefighters, Country Fire Authority official Bernard Barbetti told the Australian Broadcasting Corp on Sunday.

Climate change is causing extreme heat and fire weather to become more common in Australia, a bushfire-prone country of around 27 million, the country's science agency said last year.



Private Lunar Lander Blue Ghost Falls Silent on the Moon after a 2-week Mission

Private lunar lander Blue Ghost’s shadow is seen on the moon’s surface after touching down on the moon with a special delivery for NASA, Sunday, March 2, 2025. (NASA/Firefly Aerospace via AP)
Private lunar lander Blue Ghost’s shadow is seen on the moon’s surface after touching down on the moon with a special delivery for NASA, Sunday, March 2, 2025. (NASA/Firefly Aerospace via AP)
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Private Lunar Lander Blue Ghost Falls Silent on the Moon after a 2-week Mission

Private lunar lander Blue Ghost’s shadow is seen on the moon’s surface after touching down on the moon with a special delivery for NASA, Sunday, March 2, 2025. (NASA/Firefly Aerospace via AP)
Private lunar lander Blue Ghost’s shadow is seen on the moon’s surface after touching down on the moon with a special delivery for NASA, Sunday, March 2, 2025. (NASA/Firefly Aerospace via AP)

It’s lights out for the first private lunar lander to pull off a fully successful moon mission.

Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost lander fell silent over the weekend, wrapping up two weeks of science experiments for NASA. The end came as the sun set at the moon, no longer providing energy for the lander’s solar panels.

“Mission is completed,” Firefly CEO Jason Kim said via X late Sunday night. "But the Ghost still lives on in our hearts and minds for the journey it’s taken us on!"

The lander operated five hours into the lunar night as planned before it died Sunday evening. Photos of the lunar sunset and glow will be released on Tuesday, Kim said, The AP reported.

Blue Ghost launched from Cape Canaveral in January as part of NASA’s commercial lunar delivery program. It landed at the moon’s far northeastern edge on March 2. It carried a drill, vacuum and other science and tech instruments for NASA. Firefly confirmed Monday that all 10 experiments worked.

Late last week, Blue Ghost observed a total solar eclipse from the moon — a total lunar eclipse as seen from Earth.

The Texas-based Firefly became the first private company to land on the moon without falling or crashing after a string of failed missions by other companies over the past few years. Only five countries — the United States, Russia, China, India and Japan — have achieved a successful landing.

A Japanese company's lunar lander shared the SpaceX rocket ride, but took an even longer route to get to the moon. That lander from ispace is targeting an early June touchdown.

Another Texas company, Intuitive Machines, ended up sideways in a crater near the moon's south pole earlier this month, dooming the mission. It was the second incomplete mission for Intuitive Machines. Its first lander put the US back on the moon last year for the first time since the Apollo era after a less-than-perfect landing that hampered communications.

Firefly is already working on its next lunar lander and striving for one moon landing a year.