Australian fires: Forget the hype and big burns, just focus on the history
This Black Summer is not the new norm that scientists claim. See how it compares with fires from Australia’s history.
GLOBAL media has been ablaze with claims this summer’s fires are unprecedented, with scientists warning Australians should expect such fire seasons to become the “’new normal”.
But how much of the hype is driven by an audience searching for evidence of a climate crisis, fuelled by social media platforms.
When Black Saturday engulfed Victoria on February 7, 2009 and killed 173 people, Facebook had just 350 million users. Today it has 2.5 billion.
Platforms such as Instagram, Snapchat and WhatsApp were yet to be born and the “climate emergency” was still a theory for many.
But today people want immediate answers, hot off the web, without taking the time to look at history.
Just this week the journal Nature Climate Change published a series of articles from the world’s leading climate scientists focused on the meaning of the Australian fires.
One of those papers, written by a team of local and international scientists and titled Unprecedented burn area of Australian mega forest states:“Our analysis substantiates that the 2019-20 forest fires have burned a globally unprecedented percentage of any continental forest biome”.
But closer examination shows the team only analysed fires across the globe from November 2000 onwards.
Trying to argue 2019-20 is the new norm is just as misleading, given we’re discussing the outcome of just one horrendous fire season.
It’s absolutely correct to say 2019-20’s Black Summer fires burnt out a vast area of eastern Australia — about 7.2m hectares in total: 5.5 million hectares in NSW, 1.5 million ha in Victoria, 150,000ha on Kangaroo Island and about 125,000ha in Queensland.
But those fires burnt for almost five months, on the back of a major drought and poorly managed forests containing massive fuel loads.
Queensland’s forests started burning in September, followed by NSW in October and Victoria in November, with many fires in remote areas that no one could control.
For anyone interested in sifting the iron from ash in this debate it’s well worth examining the appendices to the 2009 Victorian Bushfires Royal Commission, which details our history of fire under European settlement.
The biggest was 1851, when five million hectares was burnt in Victoria, a quarter of the colony, killing 152 people.
No doubt much of that 1851 fire was fuelled by forest regrowth in the wake of losing Aboriginal cultural burning to disease and displacement.
Since then fires have repeatedly hit the nation, with just a few listed here:
1926 Victorian fires burnt across Noojee, Kinglake, Warburton, Erica and the Dandenong Ranges: 60 people killed, 700 rendered homeless. Area burnt: 400,000 hectares.
1939 Victorian Black Friday, 13-20 January, large areas of North East Victoria, Gippsland, the Otway and Grampian Ranges: 71 people killed, leaving 3000 people homeless. Area burnt: 1.5-2 million ha.
1943-44 Victorian fires, Central and western districts, Morwell, Yallourn: 51 people killed, destroyed 500 buildings. Area burnt 1.16 million ha.
1952 January – March Victorian fires across central and southern districts,: 10 deaths, 1.5 million ha burnt.
December 1957-58, NSW Blue Mountains fires, four dead and two million ha burnt.
14-17 January 1962 Victorian fires, The Basin, Christmas Hills, Kinglake, St Andrews, Hurstbridge, Warrandyte, Mitcham: 32 deaths, 454 buildings destroyed.
Black Tuesday 7, February 1967, Tasmanian fires: 62 people killed, 270,000ha burnt
16-18 February 1983 Ash Wednesday fires in Victoria: 47 killed, 210,000ha burnt out.
2009 Victorian Black Saturday fires, 173 people killed, 2133 homes and 430,000ha destroyed.
2019-20 Qld, NSW, Victoria and South Australian fires, 32 people killed, about 2600 homes destroyed, across 7.2 million ha burnt.
History shows us there are no new norms in this country, just the uncertainty of living in a landscape in which we must constantly adapt.
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