In New South Wales in 2013, bushfires in January and October collectively burned 768,000 hectares of bushland and destroyed 279 homes. Tragically, two people lost their lives and the damage was estimated…
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Articles on NSW bushfires 2013
Displaying 1 - 20 of 21 articles
Australians have always had to live with bushfires - but climate change is driving that fire danger even higher. And we’re not talking about a distant threat to future generations. According to real observations…
Climate change has yet again been blamed for another natural disaster, this time the recent bushfires in NSW. But much more important is the role of poor land-use planning decisions that are increasing…
When tragedies such as the NSW bushfires strike it might feel thoughtless and insensitive to talk about climate change. But history proves there are three reasons that disasters are precisely the time…
Bushfire management is one of Australia’s most prominent and important environmental challenges, affecting the lives of hundreds of thousands of people. Just this week, Google launched a Google Crisis…
Recent fires in New South Wales highlight our current vulnerability, remind us about potential future risks and prompt us to think more strategically about risk management. Some key questions have come…
The New South Wales fires have sparked a hot debate on the question whether these fires are linked to climate change. Prime Minister Tony Abbott joined in too stating, “These fires are certainly not a…
A valid argument about a scientific issue requires support using robust, objective, peer-reviewed scientific evidence. This notion is drilled into university students from the beginning of their tertiary…
As we are currently witnessing, transferring the suburban house into a setting susceptible to bushfires causes a lot of problems. Put simply: if you are going to live in a bushfire area you should expect…
It’s alarmingly familiar. Scenes of bushland burning on the fringes of an Australian city. The roofs of threatened homes just visible through the forest canopy and the smoke. Fire-fighters beyond exhaustion…
You do not find many climate change sceptics on the end of [fire] hoses anymore… They are dealing with increasing numbers of fires, increasing rainfall events, increasing storm events. – A senior Victorian…
The Greater Sydney region contains the largest urban centre in Australia, and is also, thanks to its landscape and forests, prone to intense bushfires. Tens of thousands of properties and businesses are…
In 2009, just after Black Saturday, when some of Canada’s most experienced firefighters were out in Australia to fight bushfires, they were amazed. They told journalists that while the spruce and fir forests…
Peter Phelps is no friend of mine. He’s Government Whip in the NSW Legislative Council, and he’s previously had some interesting things to say about science. He’s also a fun and feisty Twitter user, who’s…
With fires still burning across New South Wales, it’s time to have a look at the role climate change might have played. Are the conditions we’re seeing natural variation, or part of a long term trend…
With an early, devastating start to the bushfire season in New South Wales and Queensland, recent disasters in Victoria and Tasmania, and projections that current trends will continue under climate change…
In recent days, we’ve seen dramatic pictures of thick smoke from bushfires hanging over Sydney. Our first thoughts are with people living in the immediate vicinity of the fires, and the threat to their…
For the Abbott government, it has emerged that talking about climate change during a “natural” disaster is taboo. Of course, how “natural” the NSW fires actually are is the issue here, as we witness over…
Yet again we are seeing tragedy unfold in NSW, where more than 90 fires are currently burning. Yet, as with many issues of profound importance, as a society we seem unable to make the links between conditions…
Even without the official tally it looks like the fires that started yesterday in Blue Mountains will be the most costly in terms of property since 1968. But how have they come about? Why is the area vulnerable…
Top contributors
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Emeritus professor, University of Wollongong
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Director, Climate Change Communication Research Hub, Monash University
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Professor, Department of Biological Sciences, Macquarie University
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Professor, Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment, Western Sydney University
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Professorial Research Fellow, Victoria University
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Principal Research Scientist, CSIRO Oceans and Atmosphere, CSIRO
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Associate Professor, School of Earth, Atmosphere and Environment, Monash University
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Associate professor of climate adaptation, University of Tasmania
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Professor, Menzies Institute for Medical Research, University of Tasmania
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Professor of Environmental Law, University of Tasmania
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Senior Research Fellow, Centre for Environmental Risk Management of Bushfires, University of Wollongong
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Deputy Chief Environmental Scientist - Environmental Public Health, Monash University
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Post Doctoral Researcher, Landscape Sociology Group, The University of Melbourne
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Michael Howes is a Friend of The Conversation.
Associate Professor, Griffith University
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Associate Professor, Monash University
