black summer<\/a> fires that claimed 33 lives, more than 3,000 homes and burned an area almost twice the size of England. Almost 3 billion native animals were killed or displaced.<\/p>\nA wildlife carer with an injured koala joey on Kangaroo Island in January 2020 during the black summer bushfires. Photograph: Lisa Maree Williams\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
Bushfires have always been a part of the Australian landscape. Aboriginal Australians used fire for thousands of years to manage the landscape.<\/p>\n
Living with the threat of wildfires is routine, especially for people in rural areas.<\/p>\n
Permanent road signs show that day\u2019s fire risk, households have \u201cbushfire survival plans\u201d and public radio broadcasts alerts.<\/p>\n
In the months before fire seasons, there are reminders to clear gutters of debris, prune overhanging branches, clear the space around the home of anything flammable and to check there\u2019s a reliable water supply if the home has to be defended.<\/p>\n
\u201cAustralia has some of the most bushfire-prone land in the world,\u201d says Ben Shepherd, a superintendent at Fire and Rescue New South Wales.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have always pushed the view that this is about shared responsibilities. The public has to understand the risk and what they can do to alleviate it.\u201d<\/p>\n
That means, Shepherd said, preparing bushfire plans and discussing with the household at what stage will they decide to leave.<\/p>\n
Daily bushfire warnings range from \u201cno rating\u201d to \u201ccatastrophic\u201d \u2013 on those days, fire services say people should leave the area, preferably the night before.<\/p>\n
Smoke rises from burning bushland near Gellibrand in Victoria in January 2026. Photograph: Michael Currie\/AAP<\/p>\n
Australia\u2019s expertise and experience in bushfires has meant its fire services have in recent years regularly shared personnel and equipment with the United States and Canada, and vice versa.<\/p>\n
One of Australia\u2019s large air tankers has been on the US west coast helping fight fires in recent weeks, and will be followed by almost 70 personnel next week.<\/p>\n
\u201cAround the world we are seeing conditions we haven\u2019t seen before,\u201d says Shepherd. \u201cThe more we all learn from each other, the better it is for us all around the globe.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018This has been predicted for decades\u2019<\/p>\n
Greg Mullins has been a firefighter for almost 40 years and spent 14 years as the commissioner of Fire and Rescue New South Wales.<\/p>\n
He has been speaking on and off to European fire chiefs for more than two decades about the rising risk of wildfires and is \u201cnot surprised\u201d at the scenes from the UK and Europe.<\/p>\n
In 2004, he spoke to a fire science conference in Dublin about the need \u201cfor fire services in Europe to gear up for bushfires because of the impacts of climate change\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was a bit of a lone voice at the time,\u201d he says. \u201cBut everything was drying out. This is what has been predicted for decades. Heatwaves are priming the landscape for fire.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhere they were used to seeing fires on the heathlands, they were starting to get forest fires. But all the equipment was aimed at fighting fires in structures.\u201d<\/p>\n
A firefighter battles a blaze burning near NSW\u2019s Port Macquarie in November 2019. Photograph: Saeed Khan\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
Fighting a fire in a forest or on hills is different to fighting a fire in an urban setting. A fire in a building will typically have a road for the fire truck and \u201cthere will be ready access to water\u201d, Mullins says.<\/p>\n
\u201cOn the moors and in a forest, that\u2019s not the case. In a town, you know where the fire is \u2013 it\u2019s at number 16 \u2013 but it can take hours to find a fire in a forest and by then it can be out of control.\u201d<\/p>\n
Routines and conventions learned over a century or more in Australia are being tested by hotter and more frequent fires.<\/p>\n
Climate change has lengthened Australia\u2019s fire season and has already seen an increase in the number of days where the risk of fire is high. It\u2019s a familiar narrative around the world.<\/p>\n
Firefighters mop up hot spots after a bushfire near the Victorian town of Alexandra in January 2026. Photograph: Michael Currie\/Reuters<\/p>\n
Dr Grant Williamson, a wildfire expert at the University of Tasmania, says there is \u201cstrong evidence that fire weather is increasing, globally, under human-driven climate change\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cFires are and will continue to burn hotter and this effect is particularly pronounced in temperate and Mediterranean climate zones,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn terms of disastrous wildfires, fire disaster risk is greatest in affluent, heavily populated areas that include the western US, Australia and Mediterranean Europe, with a particularly sharp increase in the occurrence and impact of disasters after 2015 \u2013 43% of the 200 most damaging wildfires occurred in the last decade.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018Another 10 minutes and we wouldn\u2019t be alive\u2019<\/p>\n
Back in Reedy Swamp, the Harrises rebuilt on their plot of land with their insurance money. Unlike their last home, this one is bushfire rated. There is 50 metres of cleared area all around; there\u2019s an extra water tank; no wood on the exterior of the home; gutters with guards to stop debris buildup; a firefighting pump and a wide passing area on their 500 metre drive.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would just leave though,\u201d says Harris. \u201cIf we\u2019d stayed another 10 minutes last time, we wouldn\u2019t be alive.\u201d<\/p>\n
Harris has her own advice for people being threatened, perhaps for the first time, by wildfires.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe often don\u2019t spend enough time just sitting with what\u2019s happened,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s frightening and it\u2019s heartbreaking. Yes it was financially difficult for us but we could navigate through that, but at huge emotional cost.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf there\u2019s psychological help, I would say take it. People say what you have lost are just things and that\u2019s true \u2013 but they were my things.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen an authority asks you to evacuate then, if we choose not to, are we then asking them to come and save us? That\u2019s a really big ask.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs much as I am mournful for what we have lost, I am pretty happy to be here.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The violent hot red flames of deadly wildfires across the UK and Europe and scenes of panicked communities…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":807346,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[49,48,295,66],"class_list":["post-807345","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-environment","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/807345","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=807345"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/807345\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/807346"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=807345"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=807345"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=807345"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}