Massive Australian bushfire impacts: it's our fault

The Black Summer bushfires of 2019–20 claimed 33 lives, destroyed over 3,000 buildings and scorched more than 24 million hectares across South East Australia. But far from being a freak disaster, it was a warning of worse to come. And we have learned almost nothing in relation to mitigation.

Despite the scale of devastation, governments and land managers have not seriously changed course. Prescribed burning remains rare. Bureaucracies remain locked into rigid, ecologically narrow fire regimes that ignore the fundamental drivers of landscape flammability. The result is that large-scale, intense bushfires are no longer exceptional. They are now systemic.

The author considers that current fire management approaches across SE Australia landscapes are failing and, in many cases, have failed. State and federal fire interval approaches focus too narrowly on individual species and threatened flora and fauna communities, while largely ignoring the long-term consequences of not burning.

As an example, across NSW, prescribed burning of forested areas has averaged just 0.6% per year over the past seven years. Most states remain at low levels, except for south-western Western Australia, where the contrast in fire outcomes is stark. The data shows, across more than 60 years, that states with more extensive prescribed burning experience far less bushfire damage. (See: Review of prescribed burning and wildfire burning across Australia).

These inadequate fire regimes have predictable and compounding consequences: widespread high-intensity bushfires that damage communities, ecosystems, infrastructure, and the economy.

From cultural fire to catastrophe

For tens of thousands of years, Aboriginal Australians actively managed the land through frequent, low-intensity burning. This "cultural fire" regime created open forests, controlled fuel loads, and sustained biodiversity. European colonisation disrupted this balance. The suppression of Aboriginal fire practices and later policies favouring fire exclusion allowed vegetation to become denser (including understories) and more flammable.

The retreat from active fuel management has created conditions for extreme bushfire behaviour: hotter, faster, longer duration bushfires. And fuel loads that span landscapes.

Across SE Australia, prescribed burning covers a pitiful fraction of the landscape. Unburnt fuel now stretches across very large contiguous areas. This contiguity allows bushfires to run unchecked for hundreds of kilometres. In 2019–20, the Gosper's Mountain fire became the largest individual blaze in the world. Repeat megafires have torched the Grampians, the Little Desert, the Flinders Ranges, and Kosciuszko National Park - sometimes twice in under two decades.

The fuel is not just thick. It is vertically connected. Dense understories and deadwood provide a ladder into the canopy. When fire hits these areas, it becomes a crown fire - intense, fast-moving, and lethal to firefighters, ecosystems, and infrastructure alike. And because previous high-intensity fires kill many mature trees and often replace grassy forests with shrubby forests, they make the next bushfire even worse. We are locked in a positive feedback loop.

A system unfit for safety

Our fire response system is geared toward suppression, not prevention. But suppression fails under catastrophic conditions. Firefighters are being sent into landscapes with too much fuel, too little time, and little margin for error. Dead trees can fall without warning, escape routes can be blocked and smoke can reduces visibility to very short distances.

In 2019–20, nine firefighters died. But unless we act, the death toll in future bushfires could be much higher. Community safety is also eroding. Whole towns like Mallacoota were cut off. Air pollution from fires killed an estimated 400 people and put thousands more in hospital. These are not isolated events. They are baked into our current fire management mitigation approach.

Ecological collapse

The ecological toll is staggering. In many cases grassy forests are becoming shrubby forests. Obligate tree species such as Alpine ash forests, which require 15–20 years between fires to regenerate, are at risk from repeat bushfires. Hollow-bearing trees - critical for birds and marsupials - are being lost in large numbers in megafires.