Fire officials defended Australia's defense1 department on Thursday after investigators2 revealed a military training exercise ignited the largest of the wildfires that have torn across the nation's most populous3 state over the past week.
据美国媒体10月24日报道，澳大利亚调查人员发现，上周在澳大利亚人口最多的州肆虐的最大一场山火是军事演习引发的。
The Rural Fire Service said Wednesday that one of the more than 100 fires that have burned since last week began at a Defense Department training area as a result of "live
ordnance4（军火，大炮） exercises." The fire it sparked near the city of Lithgow, west of Sydney, has burned 47,000 hectares (180 square miles) and destroyed several houses, but no injuries or deaths were reported in the blaze.
In a statement,
Acting5 Defense Minister George Brandis said the military was cooperating with investigators.
Rural Fire Service
commissioner6 Shane Fitzsimmons said the defense department's actions were obviously an accident.
"It wasn't deliberate; it was a side effect of a routine activity, it would appear, and clearly there was no intention to see fire start up and run as a result of that activity," Fitzsimmons said. "There is no
conspiracy7 here."
The fires have killed one man and destroyed more than 200 homes in New South Wales state over the past week. Sixty-five fires were still burning Thursday, with 24 out of control, though all emergency warnings had been lifted.
Meanwhile, officials said an aircraft
helping8 fight a fire near Ulladulla, south of Sydney, crashed Thursday morning. The fire service said it had no details, including whether anyone was injured, and that rescue crews were headed to the scene.
The major wildfire threat had passed Thursday, as cooler temperatures and calm winds prevailed and hundreds of residents returned to homes they had
evacuated9 earlier.
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