Forest Fires in Australia — Impact and Implications
By Tejatha A Hallur
According to the dictionary.com, the word, “Bushfire” is a term that denotes rapidly growing fire in scrubs. Australia is a country, known to be rich in plant and wildlife spreading up to 17% of the continents land with a plethora of indigenous, tropical and subtropical forests. Queensland has the highest concentration of forests recorded at 39% for the total concentration by 2016 besides New South Wales which takes 15%. The term, Bush Fire represents, rapidly spreading fire through scrubs. In other words, it can be described as a forest fire. The initial record of uncontrolled fires in the country were observed during the 19th century (Pyne, 1991).
The Impact of Climatic Changes on Bushfires
Environmental change can have disastrous outcomes. Changes in the atmosphere, climate and the environment around the world have been observed and its implications on economy and ecosystem were recorded at various levels. Bushfires can be considered as a result of changes in the temperature. Global warming and other factors observed through anthropogenic changes suggest that human activities such as pollution contributes to the rise in temperature at global scale (Oldenborgh, et al., 2020). It was also proved by the analysis provided by the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change that human contribution can be a major factor contributing to the deterioration of the ecosystem [AR5 report, 2014]. Concentrating on the Australian continent, a gradual growth in the regional temperature have been observed since the initial bushfires (Clark, 2020). The temperature ranges of around 20 o c, with a modal 30 degree celsius to 32.5 degree celsius was found to be associated with bushfires. However, there are events of bushfires that are caused by not only the changes in the climate but also by human acts such as careless campers, illegal burning or lighting.
Study suggests that the effect of temperature on bushfires is irregular and less rainfall in certain north eastern regions of the country triggered the growth of dry lands. Larger dry lands with dried forests act as fuel to the growing fires. However, the temporal distribution of heavy rainfall can promote the growth of plants which in turn acts as burning material. Although the factors such as purposeful lighting of fires has an influence, the principle explanation behind the variations in their recurrence, duration and size has been the significant increase in the fuel load in many regions of Australia
Implications on Health
Recent season of bushfire has an enormous impact on the environment in and around Australia. Recorded from the recent season, 18.6 million hectares of forest land was burnt by March, 2020 which believed to have driven some endangered species of animals to extinction. Though the season recorded to have caused at least 34 direct deaths in the region there were 417 indirect deaths due to smoke inhalation. As discussed above, the Northern Tablelands (NSW), Australian Bureau of Meteorology and the Southern Downs (QLD) recorded lowest rainfall between January and August, 2019. As a result of the season of fires, New South Wales and Queensland declared a state of emergency after the recorded highs in property loss. The unpredictable fires have threatened the lives of people in both the provinces as it is the largest bushfire ever recorded in history. The continuing season of fire burnt almost 700 homes in NSW and effected inconceivable numbers in wildlife including the Koalas. A total of 8000 were directly injured and 433 direct fatalities were recorded during the major fire seasons from 1967 to 2013.
During the period from 2008 to 2012, US Environmental Protection Agency had an estimated cost of US$ 513 Billion in premature deaths and morbidity due to air pollution from wildlands. Well documented and known hazardous components of bushfires include PM10 and PM2.5. The concentration of these materials in the environment surrounding the bushfires such as Sydney were found to be 100 µg/m3 and continues to grow up to 500 µg/m3 in the coming days (4 X WHO guidelines off 25 µg/m3). This estimates around 4.5% and 6.1% of mortality due to cardio vascular and respiratory mortality respectively. Increase in the evidence also suggests that the fires cause pulmonary and respiratory infections and also psychological disorders (Yu, et al., 2020).
The continuous changes in the climate and at this rate the fires are estimated to develop by 15% to 70% by 2050. Australian government aims to reduce its carbon footprint by 26% to 28% by 2030 as a climate action. Moreover, the government is supporting the environment with policies created under the National Environment Law through Environment protection and Biodiversity Act 1999 (EPBC Act). And also supporting the community through Fire Fighting and Fire Prevention under Bushfire Management. However, there is a need for efficient and immediate climate action to curb the fires from becoming a common catastrophe.
