Australian PM apologizes for vacation as firefighters killed in huge blazes
Australia has been fighting wildfires across three states for weeks
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison issued a rare public apology on Friday and cut short a Hawaiian vacation in response to mounting public anger after two volunteer firefighters were killed battling bushfires sweeping the country's east coast.
Some areas of Sydney are set for "catastrophic" conditions on Saturday, and the deadly fires are now engulfing other parts of the country. One person was killed in a car crash on Friday near South Australia's capital city of Adelaide where an emergency warning is in place, though the precise circumstances surrounding the death is not yet clear.
Australia has been fighting wildfires across three states for weeks, with blazes destroying more than 700 homes and nearly 3 million acres (1.2 million hectares) of bushland.
The death of the two firefighters overnight when their fire truck was struck by a falling tree as it traveled through the front line of a fire brought the fires death toll in New South Wales to eight since the start of October.