{"id":793519,"date":"2026-07-11T12:32:24","date_gmt":"2026-07-11T12:32:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/793519\/"},"modified":"2026-07-11T12:32:24","modified_gmt":"2026-07-11T12:32:24","slug":"a-big-el-nino-is-likely-australia-needs-to-get-ready-now-for-drought-fire-and-the-unknown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/793519\/","title":{"rendered":"A big El Ni\u00f1o is likely. Australia needs to get ready now for drought, fire and the unknown"},"content":{"rendered":"

This year\u2019s El Ni\u00f1o<\/a> is expected to be strong to very strong, tilting the odds<\/a> toward a hotter, drier winter and spring across southern and eastern Australia. Droughts, water shortages and a dangerous fire season become more likely. <\/p>\n

It makes sense to prepare. But the size of the event isn\u2019t set in stone. <\/p>\n

For authorities, farmers and land managers, this poses a challenge \u2013 wait, and risk being unprepared, or act with a chance preparations may go to waste. Prescribed burn windows, water allocation deadlines and decisions about crop sowing all need to happen before the forecast solidifies. <\/p>\n

Faced with decision problems like this, it\u2019s best to stage interventions, starting with low-cost, low-regret actions and preparing contingency plans in case the worst happens. <\/p>\n

Why are authorities worried?<\/p>\n

Forecasters expect El Ni\u00f1o to keep strengthening<\/a> into spring. <\/p>\n

But a strong event doesn\u2019t always mean worse conditions<\/a> here. The very strong 1997\u201398 El Ni\u00f1o resulted in near-average rainfall in most of Australia, while the far weaker 2002\u201303 event helped produce the severe Millennium Drought<\/a>. <\/p>\n

The Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) climate driver can either intensify or weaken<\/a> El Ni\u00f1o\u2019s effect on Australia. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s not yet clear which way it will go, though models suggest<\/a> it may switch from neutral to positive into spring. If it does, the chances of dangerous levels of drying increase substantially<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Over 2018 and 2019, these two climate drivers overlapped, causing intense drying<\/a> ahead of the Black Summer bushfires. In 2023, they overlapped again, producing Australia\u2019s driest three-month stretch<\/a> on record. <\/p>\n

We should know if they will overlap<\/a> this year by late July or August.<\/p>\n

From reacting to acting<\/p>\n

It makes sense to lay out stages of action and do more as necessary, rather than waiting for certainty. <\/p>\n

State government drought responses are largely structured like this. <\/p>\n

But federal leaders have consistently relied on ad-hoc spending<\/a> as droughts worsen rather than building resilience early, leading to worse outcomes<\/a> for rural communities and a higher cost. <\/p>\n

Similar criticism has been made of our bushfire response<\/a>. A recent independent review<\/a> found only 7% of federal disaster funds went to reduce risk and boost preparedness before the disaster. <\/p>\n

So what would a staged approach look like?<\/p>\n

\"aerial<\/a><\/p>\n

The huge fires of the 2019\u201320 Black Summer came after El Ni\u00f1o and the IOD coincided \u2013 and exposed flaws in disaster response.
\n BeyondImage\/Getty<\/a><\/p>\n

Stage 1: low regrets<\/p>\n

Some actions can be taken without regret because they cost little and build resilience. These would include: <\/p>\n

properly funding volunteer firefighter training and accreditation at state level. Volunteer firefighters do much of Australia\u2019s firefighting but the sector is chronically underfunded<\/a><\/p>\n

create a national drought early warning system<\/a><\/p>\n

lift the legal barriers<\/a> that prevent Traditional Owners practising cultural burning at scale. Cultural burning could match existing fuel reduction with far less ecological cost<\/a>. <\/p>\n

build the national register of firefighting personnel, equipment and aerial assets the Bushfire Royal Commission<\/a> recommended back in 2020. It is still not in place. <\/p>\n

expand existing advice services<\/a> for farmers, such as financial counselling and on-farm advice for sowing decisions and livestock feed planning. <\/p>\n

Stage 2: getting ready<\/p>\n

If a positive IOD is confirmed, authorities should focus on actions too specific or too costly to justify now, but too important to improvise mid-crisis. <\/p>\n

These could include: <\/p>\n

boosting staffing and readiness for agencies responsible for drought and bushfire response<\/p>\n

tying drought relief to observed conditions so support reaches farmers in weeks rather than months<\/a><\/p>\n

boost federal support for rural mental health early. At present, these measures require assessment after the disaster and sign-off from the prime minister<\/a><\/p>\n

confirm aerial firefighting capacity, cross-state emergency communications and potential defence force deployment in advance. This would avoid repeating Black Summer\u2019s reactive scramble<\/a> when more than 60 firefighting aircraft had to be sourced from overseas mid-crisis, incompatible radio systems left crews from different states unable to communicate directly, and defence force deployment only came after weeks of public pressure<\/a><\/p>\n

provide hospitals with access to better air-quality forecasts ahead of fire season<\/a>, to allow preparation for surges in respiratory illness<\/p>\n

establish and resource more community-led networks such as the Red Cross\u2019s Community-led Resilience Teams<\/a>. These networks have proven critical to effective disaster response and recovery<\/a> but are often left out of formal emergency management planning.<\/p>\n

\"a<\/a><\/p>\n

The Australian Defence Force was called on to help fight fires over the 2019\u201320 Black Summer.
\n Danny Casey\/AAP<\/a><\/p>\n

During and after disaster<\/p>\n

Preparation ahead of time means authorities aren\u2019t building capacity under pressure but simply trigger what\u2019s already in place. <\/p>\n

States use their incident control structures to coordinate police, fire, ambulance and the defence force under one chain of command. <\/p>\n

Declaring a state of emergency unlocks legal powers and funding pathways agreed well in advance. <\/p>\n

Evacuation orders go out through tested and proven public warning systems.<\/p>\n

The same logic carries into recovery. Rapid damage assessment teams establish what\u2019s needed where, feeding into the first wave of financial support<\/a> \u2014 one-off emergency payments and short-term income assistance for people who\u2019ve lost homes, livelihoods or income. <\/p>\n

Recovery centres open as a single point of contact, so affected residents can access grants, counselling, insurance guidance and practical help in one place.<\/p>\n

Failing to plan is planning to fail<\/p>\n

An unprepared, improvised response doesn\u2019t fail everyone equally \u2013 it punishes those with less capacity to compensate. A wealthy irrigator with secure water entitlements can weather a bad season better than a farmer reliant on the volatile temporary water market<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Similarly, First Nations communities<\/a> repeatedly report being left out of disaster planning and facing unwelcoming treatment during a disaster response.<\/p>\n

Australians are no strangers to natural disasters. What we have failed to do consistently is plan staged responses and begin as soon as a large event seems probable, rather than waiting for absolute certainty.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This year\u2019s El Ni\u00f1o is expected to be strong to very strong, tilting the odds toward a hotter,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":793520,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[64,63,75,128],"class_list":["post-793519","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-environment","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/793519","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=793519"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/793519\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/793520"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=793519"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=793519"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=793519"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}