By Lisa Martin
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The Bushfire and Natural Hazards Cooperative Research Centre released its seasonal outlook on Wednesday.
It warns Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, Tasmania and parts of Western Australia and South Australia face an above normal potential fire threat because of very warm and dry conditions and below average rainfall.
“When we go into communities post [fires] large portions of the communities are not well prepared for the fire season and a lot of people express surprise that they were to be impacted by fires,” the centre’s chief executive, Richard Thornton, told reporters in Melbourne.
The Bureau of Meteorology’s climate monitoring manager, David Jones, said the outlook was grim and the fire threat would be potentially exacerbated by severe drought conditions particularly in the Murray-Darling Basin region.
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