SYDNEY (AP) — Navy ships plucked hundreds of people from beaches and tens of thousands were urged to flee Friday before hot weather and strong winds in the forecast worsen Australia’s already-devastating wildfires.

More than 200 fires were burning, and warnings of extreme danger to come Saturday set in motion one of the largest evacuations in Australian history. Thousands have already fled at-risk coastal areas, creating traffic gridlock in places, and firefighters escorted convoys of evacuees as fires threatened to close roads.

Victoria Premier Daniel Andrew declared a disaster across much of the eastern part of the state, allowing the government to order evacuations in an area with as many as 140,000 permanent residents and tens of thousands more vacationers.

“If you can leave, you must leave,” Andrews said.

South Australia state’s Country Fire Service chief officer Mark Jones said the weather conditions were cause for concern because some fires were still burning or smoldering.

“The ignition sources are already there,” he said. “There are millions of sparks out there ready to go if they break containment lines.”

The early and devastating start to Australia’s summer wildfires has made this season the worst on record. About 5 million hectares (12.35 million acres) of land have burned, at least 19 people have been killed, and more than 1,400 homes have been destroyed.

This week, at least 448 homes have been destroyed on the New South Wales southern coast and dozens were burned in Victoria. Ten deaths have been confirmed in the two states this week, and Victoria authorities also say 28 people are missing. Fires are also burning in Western Australia, South Australia and Tasmania.

The navy was evacuating hundreds from the Victorian coastal town of Mallacoota, which has been cut off for days by wildfires, forcing as many as 4,000 residents and tourists to shelter on beaches. Landing craft ferried people to the HMAS Choules offshore.

Choules Commander Scott Houlihan said 963 people had signed up for evacuation by sea and more had been airlifted to safety.

A state of emergency was in place in New South Wales and a total fire ban.

State Rural Fire Service deputy commissioner Rob Rogers said strong winds and high temperatures Saturday will make the fire danger worse in many areas and urged those who can flee to do so.

“We know people have got a little bit of fire fatigue. They’ve been dealing with this now for months,” Rogers said. “But we need people to stay focused. Tomorrow is not the day to drop your guard. Take it seriously. If you’re in those areas where we put those maps out, do not be there.”

Prime Minister Scott Morrison visited the township of Bairnsdale in Victoria and received a warmer welcome than a day earlier in New South Wales.

Morrison cut short a visit to the town of Cobargo when locals yelled at him, made obscene gestures and called him an “idiot” and worse, criticizing him for the lack of equipment to deal with the fires in town.

In a radio interview Friday, Morrison said he understood the anger of people affected by the fires.

“People are angry and people are raw and people are upset,” he said. “Whether they are angry with me or they are angry about the situation, all I know is they are hurting and it’s my job to be there to try and offer some comfort and support.”

Smoke from the wildfires has choked air quality and turned daytime skies to near-nighttime darkness in the worst-hit areas.

It’s also blown across the Tasman Sea into New Zealand, where skies are hazy and glaciers have turned a deep caramel brown. The color change may cause more melting since the glaciers will reflect less sunlight.

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Story: Shonal Ganguly. AP journalist Steve McMorran in Wellington, New Zealand, contributed to this report.

NEW YORK (AP) — When a machete-wielding attacker walked into a rabbi’s home in Monsey, New York, during Hanukkah and a gunman fired on worshippers at a Texas church 14 hours later, the two congregations in different regions of the country joined a growing list of faith communities that have come under attack in the U.S.

It is a group that crosses denominations and geography and has companions around the world. The frequency of attacks has faith leaders and law enforcement grappling with how to protect people when they are at their most vulnerable.

FBI hate crime statistics show that incidents in churches, synagogues, temples and mosques increased 34.8% between 2014 and 2018, the last year for which FBI data is available.

“For a person bent on hate crime against a particular religion or race, you go to a place where you know a lot of people in that group will be congregating — and vulnerable,” said James Alan Fox, a criminologist at Boston’s Northeastern University. “One place you can go to find people of a certain religion is where they worship.” Most congregations, he said, do not have security.

Three of the deadliest attacks on congregation members have occurred since June 2015, when a gunman killed nine people at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, according to a database compiled by The Associated Press, USA TODAY and Northeastern University. The database includes attacks where four or more victims are killed.

However, the database wouldn’t include the most recent attacks that have refocused attention on the security vulnerabilities at religious institutions.

The FBI’s hate crime highlights list a number of crimes, including a Colorado plot to blow up a synagogue, an Oregon man sentenced to federal prison for targeting a Catholic Church and two guilty pleas in the bombing of an Islamic Center in Minnesota where congregants were worshipping in the mosque.

A five-year compilation of AP reports showed the frequency of attacks countrywide.

Recent stories included the stabbing of an Orthodox Jewish man as he approached the driveway of his synagogue in Monsey in November, as well as a Las Vegas incident where a suspect torched a Buddhist temple, then shot toward at least one monk fleeing the fire.

The data is definitive enough that the FBI invited faith leaders to its Washington, D.C., headquarters last June to discuss how to protect themselves and their congregants from bias-based attacks.

Mark Whitlock Jr., pastor of Reid Temple AME Church in Glenn Dale, Maryland, said his own staff and volunteers have met five times in the last month to discuss safety.

“Our first responsibility is to make sure our congregants have faith in God and second, that they are safe,” Whitlock said. “We must not create an environment of fear but we also must not fail to recognize things do happen and evil is present.”

Reid has a paid security staff of about 20 who wear uniforms and are armed. There are volunteers as well, made up of former and current federal agents, law enforcement officers and military who also provide security, Whitlock said.

Even with the protection, he is watchful. On Sunday, he was in the pulpit and saw the security force reacting to something. They explained later it was a stranger they wanted to identify.

“When you’re looking at thousands of people and you see your security force walking around, your mind begins to wonder,” he said.

The new spate of anti-Semitic attacks has added to the sense of urgency that’s been felt by Jewish security experts since the 2018 massacre at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue, where 11 people were killed.

“The greatest adversary we truly face is not an external threat, it’s a sense of denial,” said Michael Masters, national director of the Secure Community Network. It was formed by leading Jewish organizations in 2004 to coordinate a response to security threats.

“The conversation prior to Pittsburgh was whether safety and security was necessary,” Masters said. “Now it’s a question of how do we effectuate that — there’s now a reality that these events can happen anywhere.”

Sunday’s attack in White Settlement, Texas, in which the gunman was shot dead by a highly trained leader of the church’s security team, came barely two years after more than two dozen people were killed at a church in Sutherland Springs, Texas. That remains the deadliest shooting at a house of worship in the U.S. in modern times.

The two Texas attacks have heightened worries among churchgoers in neighboring Oklahoma, said the Rev. Derrek Belase, a former police officer turned pastor who coordinates security training for the more than 480 United Methodist churches in Oklahoma.

“Texas is close to home for us,” Belase said. “People see it on the news and think, ‘That could be us.’”

Under Oklahoma law, houses of worship are among the places where adults are allowed to carry firearms, whether concealed or openly. Churches may ask worshippers not to bring guns with them, but Belase says that’s not a common request.

When Belase is advising churches on security, his core recommendations are to work in tandem with local law enforcement, be wary of for-profit security consultants, and be sure that members of any church security team are thoroughly trained.

The security team leader in White Settlement “wasn’t just a guy with a gun,” Belase said. “He was trained to do that.”

Pardeep Singh Kaleka, executive director of the Interfaith Conference of Greater Milwaukee, said his own Sikh temple has armed guards and an evacuation plan, the result of a 2012 attack in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, that killed six worshippers, including his father. He said the conference members talk regularly about how to prevent the next tragedy. “All faiths want to remain open, Buddhists, Sikhs, Muslims, Jews, Christians, but you also have to be vigilant and institute safety protocols.”

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Associated Press researcher Rhonda Shafner in New York contributed to this report.

Associated Press religion coverage receives support from the Lilly Endowment through the Religion News Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for this content.