Please enable JavaScript.
Coggle requires JavaScript to display documents.
2019-2020 Black Summer Bushfires - Coggle Diagram
2019-2020 Black Summer Bushfires
Impacts
Economic- Australia lost $2.8 billion in total output and nearly 7,300 jobs. The total output includes the cost to other industries that suffered because of a drop in tourism.
Environmental- Over 3 billion animals were lost, with flora and fauna extinction. Mass pollution from smoke.
Social- 33 people lost their lives in the fires, while thousands more were affected by smoke inhalation and other impacts.
Causes
Anthropogenic-
Power lines, deliberate or accidental ignition by machinery, back-burning on private rural properties and arson
Natural-
Exceptionally dry conditions, a lack of soil moisture, and early fires in Central Queensland led to an early start to the bushfire season, beginning in June 2019.
Risk Management Strategies
Prescribed burning
Black Summer-
Hazard reduction burns conducted in the years leading up to the Black Summer fires effectively reduced the probability of high severity fire, and reduced the number of houses destroyed by fire.
What is it-
A controlled or prescribed burn is the practice of intentionally setting a fire to change the assemblage of vegetation and decaying material in a landscape
Preparedness-
Though it reduced the amount of fires no one was prepared for the mass scale of the bushfires
Constant maintenance
What is it-
Controlling leaf litter and other fuels for fire through cleaning out gutters, and raking leaves and discarding of them properly
Black Summer-
During the Black Summer bushfires civillians starting putting this into practice for their own safety and it reduced the amount loss of properties and land
Preparedness-
This strategy prepared the civilians in the event the bushfires drifted to their area but not for the start of the fires
Human Impacts
Backyard Burning-
The act of burning firewood or waste during this time may have caused continued fires through increased pollution resulting in higher temperatures or embers drifting off
Bush burning on private rural land-
The 'controlled' burning of land on private property (usually farms) commonly used to fertilise soil and pest control commonly started and continued bushfires during 2019-2020 as people didnt know the risk at the time
Arson-
The act of starting a wild bushfire on purpose played a huge role in the black summer bushfires as the wind carrie the 'small' fires off to a larger scale
Key Facts
Frequency-
Between 45,000 and 60,000 bushfires in Australia each year
Probability- Mostly occuring in Summer/Autumn due to favourable weather conditions e.g. dry and hot days.
Magnitude-
33 people lost their lives
3,094 houses burnt down
17 million hectares of land burnt
Scale-
Up to 19 million hectares was burnt, with 12.6 million hectares primarily forests and woodlands.
Duration-
Started in New South Wales in July 2019 with major fires in September 2019-March 2020. Last bushfire occured in Western Australia May 2020. Consecutive fires in New South Wales lasting 240 days.