Richmark Sentinel November 17 ;

by Siyabonga Ntshingila ;

Australian officials issued their first ever "catastrophic" wildfire evacuation warning Tuesday in the wake of an unprecedented heatwave over the country’s southern regions.

The heatwave has reportedly left acres of bushland tinder dry and ripe for the rise of bushfires on a massive scale and has triggered the Code Red warning.

Temperatures in South Australia are expected to top 40deg Celsius. "In the next couple of days we are going to see high temperatures, very low humidity and very strong winds," said fire service chief Euan Ferguson.

"This is the first real test for the summer."

Residents are being urged to evacuate their homes and get to safety “well before a fire starts”. This warning comes after the country was chastened by the loss of 173 lives and 2,000 homes in February’s Black Saturday firestorm and issues a more explicit warning than the existing, and widely lambasted “stay or go” policy.

While residents cannot be forcibly evacuated they are strongly advised to leave their property on a Code Red day, which signifies a high risk of death or injury and destruction.

South Australia sweltered through a record-breaking eight days of extreme temperatures last week, leaving bushland and pastoral areas tinder-dry and vulnerable to fast-moving and uncontrollable flames.

It was the state's first-ever November heatwave, and Ferguson said he had never seen so much combustible material so early in the southern hemisphere summer.