Americans baffled by the size of Australia in bush fire map comparisons

Australians know how big their country is and most of us Kiwis have a fair idea also.

But it seems our American friends don't.

"I didn't realise Australia was so large! Is this to scale?" one man asked on Twitter when science host Kyle Hill posted a map of the bushfires compared to the size of the United States.

Even given that the flame icons on the map indicate presence of fire, not necessarily the scale or timeliness, it seems many American commenters didn't realise the land mass of Australia was about as big as their own, news.com.au reports.

"Wow. I honestly never realised it was that large of a land mass. This is eye opening."

"Damn, is that actually to scale?," wrote another person.

"Australia is exactly the same width as the USA??," wrote someone else.

"Wholey Crap! It is!! [sic]"

"Australia is as large as the US? Didn't know that," wrote another woman.

"And good lord what is happening, the whole continent truly is burning."

If you overlaid what’s happening in Australia right now on the US pic.twitter.com/I3LQPT8rh1

— Kyle Hill (@Sci_Phile) January 5, 2020

A tweet from ABC News attracted a similar response.

The ABC reported how the raging fires have burned 12.35 million acres (5 million hectares) of land - with at least 24 people killed and more than 2000 homes destroyed by the blazes.

"The size of the fires across the country are twice as large as the state of Maryland and bigger than several other states, including Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts and New Jersey," they wrote.

"A superimposed map of Australia over the United States shows the scale of the regions affected by the massive wildfires that have spread Down Under."

However some reports indicate 5 million hectares of land burned in New South Wales alone, with overall estimates up to 10 million hectares.

People don’t realize that Australia is almost the same size as America. These fires would be like the entire USA being on fire #perspective pic.twitter.com/A8W0Fx8DoP

— Nick Kleckner (@hobo_nick) January 6, 2020

Meanwhile scattered showers should continue to fall on fire grounds until midweek as attention turns to getting towns up and running.

In NSW, more than 13mm fell at Merimbula on Monday, 9.8mm at Bega and 2mm at Nowra and Lake Conjola.

In Victoria, the rain that is giving bushfire-hit areas some much-needed relief continued throughout Tuesday.

Monday saw all emergency warnings being downgraded, while 14 active fires continued burning statewide.

There were fears of a "megablaze" forming from three fires along the NSW-Victoria border Tuesday, according to fire chiefs.