Australian Bushfires: NBC Ridiculed over Apocalypse Inferno Map

US television channel NBC has sparked ridicule among Australians for an over-the-top graphic to illustrate the bushfires in Sydney's state of New South Wales.

The news channel aired a "catastrophe map" that suggested that the coastline of more than half the country was ablaze.

NBC scattered across the map dozens of animated raging flame symbols covering most of the northwest and north coast, huge swathes of Darwin and the Northern Territory and Queensland as well as Sydney and bits of New South Wales, where the bushfires are actually burning.

Australian netizens mocked the US network as ignorant and its broadcast as comical.

"Surprise: Americans don't know geography," tweeted user @tomarild82.

"NBC coverage of the bush fires is comedy gold," wrote @cvTheCads

NBC's map was said to have been based on data provided by Sentinel, the online bushfire monitoring service application by government agency Geoscience Australia.

Sentinel uses satellite images to map fires and provide timely information about hotspots to emergency services across the country.

However different colour shades are used to scale blazes from innocuous to dangerous. NBC seemingly put them all together to obtain its apocalyptic map as a result.

At least 200 homes have been destroyed in New South Wales by more than 100 wildfires that have been burning throughout the state over the past week.