Bushfires in Australia

Bushfires in Australia (Bushfire) occur mainly in the hot months of the year in the respective climatic zones of Australia. In Australian parlance, bushfires refer to fires that extend over large areas of bush, grass and rainforest in the country. These fires often kill many animals as well as people, and destroy buildings, cars, etc.

The climate in Australia is generally hot, dry and prone to drought. Bushfires in southern Australia tend to occur in the Australian summer and autumn. In New South Wales and southern Queensland, the greatest bushfire risk is in spring and early summer, and in the Northern Territory in winter and spring.

The bushfires are an environmental factor and intrinsic part of the ecology of the Australian continent. For example, the fires help some species of Eucalypts and Banksia to open their seed pods. As a disturbance to succession, fire also allows certain types of plants to regrow; further, many adapted plant species form new shoots soon after fires and quickly regrow, while species not part of the ecosystem are displaced by fire. For thousands of years, Aborigines have deliberately set bushfires for their hunting and to clear paths through impassable vegetation.

According to Geoscience Australia, from 1967 to 2013, 8000 people were injured and 433 killed in the course of significant Australian bushfires, accounting for about 50% of all deaths caused by natural events in the continent of Australia during the same period.

The Black Saturday bushfires in February 2009 killed 173 people and destroyed 1800 homes. The 60 or so individual bushfires in Victoria were one of Australia's largest fire disasters, burning an area the size of Saarland (2570 km²).

The ongoing 2019/2020 Australian bushfires killed 33 people immediately (and already by 25 January 2020). An area of 126,000 sq km fell victim to the flames as of 3 March 2020. These bushfires have been described as "unprecedented" in various publications. A state of emergency was declared in Sydney as well as in the surrounding state of New South Wales as well as in Victoria. Scientists attribute the unusually fierce fires, which occurred early in the fire season, to global warming. The fires were accompanied by prolonged drought and temperatures as high as 46°C (excluding heat from the fire). Research through May 2020 found that another estimated 445 died among the thousands treated in hospitals for illness from smoke.

Memorial to the 2003 bushfire in CanberraZoom
Memorial to the 2003 bushfire in Canberra

View of the village of Swifts Creek during the 2006/2007 bushfires in Victoria in December 2006Zoom
View of the village of Swifts Creek during the 2006/2007 bushfires in Victoria in December 2006

Oil painting of a bush fire between Mount Elephant and Timboon by Eugene von Guerard (1857)Zoom
Oil painting of a bush fire between Mount Elephant and Timboon by Eugene von Guerard (1857)

Definition

Australian bushfires are generally defined as uncontrolled fires of grass, scrub, brush and forest. There are two main categories based on terrain type:

  • Bushfires in forested, hilly and mountainous areas:

These areas are sparsely developed, are not used for agriculture, and many of their forested areas are national, state, or other parks. Steep terrain increases the intensity and speed of fires, which pose a great danger to settlements and residents.

  • Bushfires in flatlands or grasslands:

In flat or less hilly terrain, mostly covered by grasses and shrubs, brush fires can spread immensely fast, as they are often fanned by strong and hot winds and favoured by dry and easily ignited vegetation. Fires in grasslands can reach an intensity similar to hill country. Here, too, there is a great danger to human settlements. However, they are easier to forecast and contain regionally; moreover, these areas are easier for fire brigades to reach.

Natural triggers of bushfires are lightning strikes, sometimes these fires are caused by careless handling of cigarettes or by arson; occasionally fires start unintentionally during agricultural use of areas.

During the 2019/2020 bushfires, fires also occurred in subtropical Gondwana rainforests in Australia, some of which had not burned for more than 1000 years. Fires also occurred in wet eucalypt forests due to drought conditions that had lasted for several years, as well as in dried-up swamps and soils of organic material after the water table there had dropped.

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Painting Black Thursday (Fire of 1851) by William Strutt (1825-1915)

History

Bushfires of natural origin have been present on the Australian continent for millions of years, triggered by lightning strikes and thus significantly shaped much of the landscape of the Australian continent before the arrival of man. Aboriginal people used fire for hunting and landscape management for many thousands of years, usually in the cooler seasons and when winds were favourable. Fires set in this way encouraged the growth and expansion of grasslands and facilitated hunting, as well as reducing the stock of combustible material and facilitating penetration into inhospitable areas with dense vegetation.

The increased occurrence of human-caused bushfires allowed fire-resistant plant species to spread, especially eucalypts. With their rapid formation of shoots after fires, woody stem bulges, and fire-resistant seeds, many plants adapted evolutionarily. Some species produce flammable oil, which increases fire effectiveness, eliminating non-fire resistant plant species in the surrounding area.

According to a summary published by the Australian CISRO in 2012, Australian fire and land management agencies dealt with 268,398 bush and grass fires between 2002 and 2007. That was an average of 53,680 fires per year. Assuming this trend had been constant throughout the 20th century, there would have been a total of about 5.5 million fires from 1901 to 2000.

Some of the most dangerous and large Australian bushfires since the arrival of European settlers have been (in chronological order):

Fire

Area

Burnt area

Date

Dead

Destruction

Bushfire in Victoria 1851

Victoria

estimated 50,000 km²

February 6, 1851

approx. 12

1 million sheep, thousands of cattle

Red Tuesday Bushfires

Victoria

2,600 km²

February 1, 1898

12

2,000 Buildings

Bushfire 1926

Victoria

February-March 1926

60

1,000 houses

Bushfire in Victoria 1939

Victoria

20,000 km²

December 1938 - January 1939, especially on 13 January 1939

71

3,700 houses

Bushfire 1944

Victoria

approx. 10,000 km²

14 January - 14 February 1944

15–20

more than 500 houses

Bushfire 1951-1952

Victoria

Summer 1951-1952

10

Black Sunday Bushfire (1955)

South Australia

January 2, 1955

2

Western Australia Bushfire 1961

Western Australia

18,000 km²

January-March 1961

0

160 houses

Bushfire 1962

Victoria

14-16 January 1962

32

450 houses

Southern Highlands Bushfire

New South Wales

5-14 March 1965

3

59 houses

Tasmanian bushfire of 1967

Tasmania

estimated 2,640 km²

1967

62

1,293 houses

Dandenong Ranges Bushfire

Victoria

19 km²

February 19, 1968

53 houses and 10 other buildings

Bushfires in the Northern Territory 1968-1969

Northern Territory

400,000 km²

1968–1969

Killarney - Top Springs

Bushfires in the Northern Territory 1969-1970

Northern Territory

450,000 km²

1969–1970

Dry River - Victoria River

Bushfire in South Australia 1969

Victoria

January 8, 1969

23

230 houses

Northern Territory Bushfires 1974-1975

Northern Territory

450,000 km²

1974–1975

Barkly Tableland, Victoria River District, near Newcastle Waters

1974-1975 Western Australia Bushfire

Western Australia

290,000 km²

1974–1975

1974-1975 South Australia Bushfire

South Australia

170,000 km²

1974–1975

Western Districts-Bushfire

Victoria

1,030 km²

February 12, 1977

4

116 houses and 340 buildings

Western Australia Bushfire 1978

Western Australia

1,140 km²

April 4, 1978

2

6 buildings (the falling wind in the early evening is believed to have saved the towns of Donnybrook, Boyup Brook, Manjimup and Bridgetown)

Northern Sydney Bushfire

New South Wales

1979

20 homes in Sydney, the fire spread to Ku-ring-gai-Chase National Park.

Ash-Wednesday-Bushfires

South Australia and Victoria

4,180 km²

February 16, 1983

75

about 2,400 houses

Central Victoria Bushfire

Victoria

508 km²

January 14, 1985

3

> 180 houses

Eastern Seaboard Bushfires 1994

New South Wales

27 December 1993 - 16 January 1994

4

225 houses

Wooroloo Bushfire

Western Australia

105 km²

8 January 1997

0

16 houses

Dandenongs Bushfire

Victoria

4 km²

21 January 1997

3

41 houses

Lithgow Bushfire

New South Wales

2 December 1997

2

Perth-and-SW-Region-Bushfire

Western Australia

230 km²

2 December 1997

2 (21 injured)

1 House

Linton Bush Fire

Victoria

1998

5

There were 5 firefighters who died in the line of duty on December 2, 1998.

Black Christmas Bushfire

New South Wales

3,000 km²

2001–2002

0

121 houses

2002 Northern Territory Bushfire

Northern Territory

380,000 km²

2002

Bushfire in Canberra 2003

Australian Capital Territory

2003

4

nearly 500 houses, Canberra

Bushfire in Victoria 2003

Victoria

> 13,000 km²

8 January - 7 March 2003

41 houses. The bushfire burned for 59 days.

Tenterden

Western Australia

December 2003

2

(21,100 km² of forest burned during the 2002-2003 bushfire season in southwestern Western Australia)

Eyre Peninsula Bushfire

South Australia

8,900 km²

10-12 January 2005

9

about 50 houses

Central Coast Bushfire 2006

New South Wales - Central Coast

New Year's Day 2006

Jail Break Inn Fire

New South Wales - Junee Shire

300 km²

New Year's Day 2006

0

20,000 head of cattle. 7 houses, 7 combines and 4 sheep pens destroyed. 1,500 km of fence was damaged.

Victoria bushfire 2005

Victoria

1,600 km²

December 2005 - January 2006

4

57 houses, 359 farm buildings, 65,000 head of livestock. The bushfires occurred in the Stawell, Moondarra, Anakie, Yea and Kingla regions.

Grampians Bushfire

Victoria

1,840 km²

January 2006

2

25 houses destroyed, 62,000 sheep and 500 cattle burned.

Pulletop Bushfire

New South Wales - Wagga Wagga

90 km²

February 6, 2006

0

2,500 sheep, 6 head of cattle, 3 vehicles, 2 straw barns and 50 km of fence was destroyed

The Great Divides Fire

Victoria

10,480 km²

1 December 2006 - March 2007

1

51 houses

Bushfires in Victoria 2006/2007

Victoria

approx. 12,000 km²

1 December 2006 - 7 February 2007

1

41 houses destroyed. The bushfire burned for 69 days

Dwellingup Bush Fire

Western Australia

120 km²

February 4, 2007

0

12 houses destroyed.

Kangaroo Island Bushfire

South Australia

950 km²

6-14 December 2007

1

Flinders Chase National Park (630 km² or 85 % of the area of the national park burnt)

Boorabbin National Park Bushfire

Western Australia

400 km²

30 December 2007

3

Overhead power lines and Great Eastern Highway were destroyed and not usable for 2 weeks

Black Saturday Bushfires

Victoria

> 4,500 km²

7 February 2009 - 14 March 2009

173

> 2,029 houses and 2,000 other structures. In the course of this bushfire, three lightning-generating fire clouds, so-called pyrocumulonimbus, were formed, which rose to a height of up to 15 kilometres.

Toodyay Bush Fire

Western Australia

> 30 km²

December 29, 2009

0

37 houses

Lake Clifton brush fire

Western Australia

> 20 km²

11 January 2011

0

10 houses destroyed

Roleystone-Kelmscott Bush Fire

Western Australia

> 15 km²

6-8 February 2011

0

72 homes destroyed, 32 damaged, the Buckingham Bridge on Brookton Highway collapsed and had to be replaced with a temporary bridge.

Bushfires in Australia 2019/2020

New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, Victoria, Western Australia, Tasmania, Northern Territory

> 126,000 km²

August 2019 - March 2020

33 directly + estimated 445 from smoking

5,900 buildings including 2,800 homes destroyed; 80% of Australia's residents hit by smoke, thousands treated in hospitals for smoke-related illnesses at a cost of AUSD 2 billion (1.2 billion euros), an estimated additional 445 deaths from smoke-related illnesses

Bushfire Fraser Island

Queensland

> 800 km²

From mid-October 2020

Two years after the Bogong bushfire, the forest in Victoria's eastern Gippsland shows the recovery of trees and vegetation.Zoom
Two years after the Bogong bushfire, the forest in Victoria's eastern Gippsland shows the recovery of trees and vegetation.

Shoots from the bark of a eucalyptus tree after a large bushfire, a survival strategy of plants after fire damage.Zoom
Shoots from the bark of a eucalyptus tree after a large bushfire, a survival strategy of plants after fire damage.


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