Satellite images show the scale of Australia's wildfires

SYDNEY — Australia's wildfires are so big now that satellites in space are able to spot the fires.

Footage captured from Japan's Himawari-8 satellite shows plumes of smoke covering eastern Australia on January 2.

Another image from the same satellite pinpoints the exact location of the burning fires using near infrared light.

NASA released images from the International Space Station that show smoke from the fires around the Sydney area on January 3.

The European Space Agency's Sentinel-2 satellite also captured images of the growing wildfires in New South Wales on New Year's Eve.

Images captured by the Japanese satellite in the past few days show the smoke from the fires gradually drifting and slowly making its way toward New Zealand.

These bushfires have been fuelled by record high temperatures and severe drought over the past few months, BBC News reports.

The state of New South Wales has been the worst hit, with the fires destroying more than 1,300 homes and forcing thousands of people to evacuate.

According to the BBC, the fires have been worse than usual.

Since July 1, roughly 5 million hectares have already been burned down in New South Wales.

In comparison, the Amazon rainforest fires in 2019 burned down approximately 900,000 hectares of land.

According to CNN, the fires aren't likely to end anytime soon as it is just the beginning of summer in Australia, and temperatures tend to soar in the months of January and February.