Authorities: Early Blazes an 'Omen' of What's to Come.
WATT: More than 100 bushfires are burning in two of Australia's most populous eastern states, and as Michael Holmes reports, the worst may be yet to come.</s>MICHAEL HOLMES, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The scorched remains of one of Queensland's treasures, the Binna Burra Lodge in Lamington National Park, located in one of Australia's world heritage site rainforests. The rooms in apartments here destroyed by a bushfire that has been burning out of control.</s>KEVIN WALSH, QUEENSLAND FIRE & RESCUE: Accessibility continues to be a major problem for us in this location. It's a very dangerous and dynamic situation up there at the moment.</s>HOLMES: Firefighters here have been using air support to battle the spreading blaze. This is just one of more than 100 wildfires burning in the eastern states of New South Wales and Queensland. Fire officials say strong winds are fanning the flames, which have so far burned thousands of hectares. A spokesman for the Bureau of Meteorology in Queensland says rain is not expected anytime soon, and the dry conditions make things worse.</s>ANNASTACIA PALASZCZUK, QUEENSLAND STATE PREMIER: We have had --</s>WATT: Queensland's state premier says nearly 20 homes have been destroyed in her state.</s>PALASZCZUK: I want everyone to think about that for a moment. This is a person's home, this is where they raise their children, their grandchildren. So we have a number of families at the moment that are actually going through some really traumatic times.</s>WATT: At this evacuation center, they are stocking up on supplies, preparing to receive more displaced residents. Bush fires are common in Australia, in Queensland and New South Wales particularly vulnerable in the spring and early summer because of their typically dry conditions. However, fires have started early this year, and fire officials are warning that this might be an ominous sign of what is to come during the summer, which runs from December to February. Michael Holmes, CNN, Atlanta.</s>WATT: Meanwhile, an inferno in Alaska known as the Swan Lake Fire is still burning more than one month after fire season there typically ends. Is this state a bellwether, raising alarms about the climate crisis, an indicator of things to come further south? CNN's Bill Weir is in Alaska.</s>SUE MAUGER, SCIENCE DIRECTOR, COOK INLETKEEPER: The temperatures we saw this summer were what we expected for 2069.</s>NICK WATT, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Really?</s>MAUGER: We're 50 years ahead of where we thought we would be for extreme temperatures, so that's very alarming.</s>WATT: Streams now too warm for fish to spawn, and glaciers melting at an alarming rate. See Bill's entire piece on the Alaska crisis in our next hour, and a live interview with Ban Ki-Moon, former secretary general of the United Nations, talking about a new global initiative to fight climate change. Thanks for watching CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Nick Watt. WORLD SPORT is next.