In 2019, bushfire season started four months early. The damage caused since is nothing less than overwhelming: 18 million hectares burnt, more than 5,900 buildings destroyed – including more than 2,800 homes – 34 deaths, as of early February, and an estimated 1 billion animals killed. Satellite data suggests the fires released 400 million tonnes of CO2, close to Australia’s total annual greenhouse gas emissions.
We often hear the word ‘unprecedented’ as climate chaos spreads; the environmental impacts are hard to overstate. Climate change has already made the country hotter and drier, which is making some fires unstoppable; it’s brought more ‘plume cloud’ or ‘pyronimbocumulus’ fires that generate their own weather including dry lightning, which can ignite new fires. Areas that ‘aren’t meant to burn’ – such as rainforest remnants – have been devastated. In Victoria, 31 per cent of the cool temperate rainforests have been damaged, and government reports suggest that some species – such as the long-footed potoroo, a critically endangered miniature kangaroo – may have become extinct. Fire ecologists are suggesting some of the wet forests may take a century to recover.
