Local perspective: Australian wildfires would have burned nearly half of Florida

You may have seen the pictures or heard the grave stories coming out of Australia as wildfires continue to rage.

As of Jan. 7, CBS News reports that nearly 20 million acres have been burned across the country. That equates to more than 30,000 square feet burned.

To put that into perspective, that amount of land would encompass nearly half the state of Florida, stretching from Ocala and Palm Coast all the way down to Cape Coral and Boca Raton. For more context, the devastating wildfires in Florida in 1998 burned approximately 500,000 acres.

NASA satellites have captured just how dire the situation has become over the last several weeks.