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.

A number of threatened species are pushed closer to extinction. Water catchments are compromised by erosion. Air quality deteriorates for months at a time. The carbon released from massive forest fires makes a mockery of our climate targets. Yet the policies that fuel this spiral remain untouched.

The economic case for fire reform

It costs billions to fight bushfires once they have started. The 2021 Dixie Fire in California, a case study of what happens when fuel loads are ignored, cost $700 million to suppress. But a fraction of that spent on thinning and burning would have prevented it.

Australia is making the same mistake. Insurance costs are rising. Infrastructure is repeatedly destroyed. Forestry plantations are lost. Tourism suffers. Budgets are blown out by emergency response. And all of it is predictable, because we know what causes it.

Policy failures decades in the making

The current system is paralysed by ecological idealism and bureaucratic inertia. Fire return intervals are based on static assumptions about individual species and ecological communities rather than dynamic risk across landscapes. Regulations prohibit low-intensity burns in areas deemed too sensitive - which inevitably are often then burned at high intensity anyway.

Risk assessments focus on suppression, not mitigation. Community preparedness is undercooked. Local knowledge is ignored. And in the absence of accountability, nothing changes.

It is essential that all the impacts and costs of these failing fire regimes across SE Australia be assessed. The attached assessment identifies 32 distinct impact areas spanning disaster, social, environmental and economic categories. The scale of impacts is immense. The damage is systemic. And the time for action is now.

What must be done

We need a revolution in land management. Not more inquiries. Not more air tankers. Action.

1. Scale up prescribed burning. This is not a silver bullet, but it is our best available tool. We must increase the rate of low-intensity burning across SE Australia to at least 5–8% per annum, with variation by forest type. It must be strategic, landscape-scale, and continuous.

2. Reform regulation. Current biodiversity protections perversely guarantee ecological destruction by minimizing management burning at regular intervals. A complete overhaul of fire interval guidelines and environmental approvals is essential.

3. Implement sound community protection. Develop town-level fire protection plans. Clear evacuation routes. Harden infrastructure. Implement US-style Firewise and FireSmart programs. Stop pretending that national parks are human-free zones.

4. Build accountability. Fire agencies, conservation bodies, and governments must be held to measurable outcomes: area treated, risk reduced, communities protected. No more hiding behind process.

Conclusion: fire is not the enemy, mismanagement is

Fire shaped this continent. But in failing to manage it, we have turned it into a destroyer. Unless we reset our relationship with fire - from fear and suppression to knowledge and stewardship - Australia will keep burning. And each fire will be worse than the last.

We are not passive victims of climate. We are active contributors to disaster. And we can change it.

It is time for governments at all levels to acknowledge this reality and commit to genuine, large-scale fire mitigation - in policy, in funding, and on the ground.