Jack Stewart
Australia experienced historically the worst series of bushfires in the final quarter of 2019 until early 2020. These fires left areas of the country devastated. Australia has had a long history related to bushfires, but the events that took place during 2019 were unprecedented. Australia had been suffering from a drought since early 2017, and this continuous pattern of little to no rain ultimately helped lead to the horrific events that occurred in 2019. Some areas reached record periods of no rainfall during 2019. Though many wildfires are started by human error, most fires that start in Australia are caused by lightning strikes or just sparks that occur on dry brush. Scientists say that the conditions of the fires that occurred in 2019 were fundamentally different than fires of the past. Most bushfires occurred in areas that had average rainfall. But due to the drought and dryness of grasslands, the fires had much more fuel to use to grow and rage.
During the events of 2019, around 18 Million Hectares of land were burned due to the fires. To put that into perspective, North Carolina is 13 million hectares in size. The vast amount of damage done is truly terrifying went compared to a state. The fires began in the Queensland area and quickly spread southward. Other major cities in Australia began to rise into flames as 62 mile per hour winds helped spread the raging flames from the epicenter. New South Wales suffered the most damage due to the fires. Almost 1.65 million hectares of land were burned in this area. This area also suffered the most homes lost and where most deaths occurred.
2009 was also a very disastrous year for Australia. This event was called Black Saturday. Raging fires that lasted 26 days took the lives of 173 people across Victoria. It was a heart-breaking event that took the country by storm. While these series of fires only consumed 400,000 hectares of land, it had the highest death rate in Australian history. These fires were caused mostly by faulty power lines. A $500m class action settlement was paid out to survivors.
As we see climate change becoming a major catalyst for animal extinction, the 2019 fires endanger many species. A record two billion animals were killed during the fires. Many others also were killed due to the change in their ecosystem. Many smaller animals were lost during the fires, causing the much larger predators to have no food. Koala bears, a native animal found in Australia, mainly eat eucalyptus leaves. But many of the eucalyptus trees were burned down during the fires causing hunger and struggle for survival among these animals. Australia lost more than 15 percent of the total koala population.
Due to Australia having a naturally dry and hot ecosystem, the inevitability of bushfires occurring is expected. With the damage from 2019’s fires still being recovered from; it leaves an easy start for more intense fires. Australia’s Government is working hard to enforce more laws to help prevent the start of any uncontainable fires. They have also increased the benefits for any volunteer firefighter to have ready on standby if another situation had occurred. In recent months, Australia has seen more rainfall occur throughout the country which can hopefully lessen the impact of the upcoming bushfire season.