Street graffiti artists have created extraordinary murals paying tribute to the firefighters tirelessly battling the bushfire crisis in Australia.
At least 27 people have died as a result of the infernos gripping Down Under, along with more than a billion dead animals. It’s also estimated that 10 million hectares (100,000 sq km) of land across the entirety of Australia have turned to ash in the bushfires.
New South Wales has been particularly ravaged by fire, with thousands of homes destroyed. Although, if it weren’t for the NSW Rural Fire Service, ‘the world’s largest volunteer firefighting organisation’, it’d be even worse.
On Melbourne’s Hosier Lane, an area renowned for its amazing graffiti, you’ll find some fantastic art. Andrew Gibbons is the artist behind one of the new additions: a koala bear fighting fires with a hose, with ‘Thank you RFS’ written in the corner, dedicated the various rural fire services across the country.
As Andrew painted the mural, he collected funds for donating to the WWF Wildlife and Nature Recovery Fund.
Unveiling the artwork on Instagram, Andrew wrote:
We got together to paint and raise money for bush fire recovery here in Australia. The support was great and what cant be done alone, maybe we can get done together. Shout out to all the people facing the blaze and caring for the lives affected most.
Instagram user @koryu88 is credited for rallying the artists together for ‘paint jam’, who also created his own stunning mural – again, all funds went towards the wildlife recovery fund.
While everyday folks band together to help the bushfire relief effort, celebrities and CEOs have been topping up the pot with sizeable donations of their own.
The world’s richest man and Amazon figurehead Jeff Bezos donated $1 million AUD (£532,000), while Andrew ‘Twiggy’ Forrest, an Aussie billionaire mining magnate, announced he will spend $70 million on a wildfire relief package to assist with the country’s ongoing crisis.
Other high-profile celebrities to donate money to the crisis include Elton John, Chris Hemsworth, Kylie Jenner, Margot Robbie and P!nk.
Fortunately, a brief reprieve could be on its way: more than 100mm of rain is set to fall across NSW this week. The state’s Rural Fire Service wrote in a tweet: ‘If this rainfall forecast comes to fruition then this will be all of our Christmas, birthday, engagement, anniversary, wedding and graduation presents rolled into one. Fingers crossed.’
You can donate to the Australian Red Cross here. Alternatively, you can donate to the NSW Rural Fire Service here, or the Queensland Fire Service here. You can also donate to the WWF Australia Bushfire Emergency fund here.
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After graduating from Glasgow Caledonian University with an NCTJ and BCTJ-accredited Multimedia Journalism degree, Cameron ventured into the world of print journalism at The National, while also working as a freelance film journalist on the side, becoming an accredited Rotten Tomatoes critic in the process. He’s now left his Scottish homelands and took up residence at UNILAD as a journalist.