Dozens of firefighters sent by U.S. to support wildfire situation in Australia

Tonight cool weather and rain bringing some relief but not nearly enough to stop this the sky so thick with smoke .This is what pilots saw this weekend when they tried to evacuate. People from areas cut off by flames with dozens of fires still burning out of control more help is on the way .

Including dozens of American firefighters the first group of them arriving today to join Australian crews who are mostly volunteers at frontlines and in control centers .

Tim cookus and Robin wills among the experienced Americans who came last month the scale of the devastation here staggering .

At least 25 people dead an estimated half a billion animals affected .The magnitude of it the scale of so many large simultaneous fires destroying property at one time is extremely unique and I've never seen anything like this in 30 years of fighting fires flames .

So powerful they can form their own weather on the weekend one massive fire jumped a river igniting new fires that expanded the igniting new fires that expanded the danger zone .

It's a changing fire environment .I think that's something that we really share with the Australians .we've experienced that in the last 15 to 20 years in the western United States .

Years of drought that experts linked to climate change has left much of the landscape looking like this with fires now closing in from all directions.