Seeds buried in the soil tell of fire in the landscape. I sampled soil from 57 sites that experienced different patterns of fire. Over 15 months, I watched 39,701 plants grow to learn their secrets.
Academic rigour, journalistic flair
Articles on Bushfires
Displaying 1 - 20 of 513 articles
Earth’s climate has become dangerously unstable, and it’s only a matter of time before somewhere in Australia erupts in uncontrollable fire.
An analysis of 88 million wildfire observations over the past 21 years shows a strong increase in the frequency and intensity of the most extreme fires around the world.
Howling winds take sea salt from the Southern Ocean and lay it down in Antarctica as snow, then ice. Hidden in these ice cores is a warning about Australian fire seasons.
There’s a strong case to be made for private landholders to conduct their own cool burns, for dual purposes of reducing fuel load and restoring the ecology.
Are wombats the accidental heroes of the Australian bush? After the Black Summer bushfires, we set up 56 cameras to capture animal activity in areas with and without wombat burrows to find out.
Building ecological grief literacy in workplaces can help environmental professionals manage constant exposure to the many causes of their grieving.
The 2023 megafires burnt more than 84 million hectares of desert and savannah in northern Australia. That’s larger than the whole of NSW, or more than three times size of the UK.
We compiled maps of bushfires and prescribed burns in southern Australia from 1980 to 2021 to see how fire activity is changing habitat for 129 threatened species such as mountain pygmy possums.
We think of laughing kookaburras as common in Australia and their call certainly lets us know when they’re about. But several factors are driving down their numbers.
If accessible crisis information is not accurate, complete, up to date and high quality, there can be life and death consequences for people with disability in a bushfire, flood or pandemic.
Marsupial rescue, rehabilitation and release statistics from New South Wales and Kangaroo Island during Black Summer fires reveal poor survival rates, despite the courageous efforts of volunteers.
Buildings can be engineered to resist bushfires, but we can’t engineer the many aspects of human behaviour and decision-making that will still put lives at risk.
Australia’s approach to estimating bushfire emissions is credible and sophisticated. But it must be refined as technology improves and the climate changes.
Last year was the hottest in recorded history. That heat led to a range of unusually intense weather events across Australia.
Many Australians probably thought the worst of the bushfire season was over. But climate change is bringing not just more frequent and severe fires, but longer fire seasons.
We need every tool at our disposal to stop feral cats and foxes from decimating Australia’s incredible wildlife after fires. Artificial refuges show promise.
Children are uniquely vulnerable to bushfire smoke because of their physiology and their behaviour.
From sacrificial bark to fire-germinating gumnuts to stealthy buds the eucalyptus has evolved an arsenal of protective measures.
We’re all familiar with fire. But do you really know what it is and how it starts? Here’s the chemistry of fire – and why Australia is so prone to going up in flames.
Top contributors
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Professor of Pyrogeography and Fire Science, University of Tasmania
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Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra
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Professor, Fenner School of Environment and Society, Australian National University
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Professor in Ecology, Charles Sturt University
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Emeritus professor, University of Wollongong
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Senior research fellow, Western Sydney University
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ARC Centre of Excellence for the Weather of the 21st Century, Australian National University
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Associate Professor, School of Architecture and Built Environment, University of Newcastle
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Adjunct Senior Lecturer, School of Architecture and Built Environment, University of Newcastle
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Deputy Head of School, School of Architecture and Built Environment, University of Newcastle
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Research Fellow in Environmental Science, University of Tasmania
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Head of Operational Climate Services, Australian Bureau of Meteorology
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Professorial Research Fellow, Victoria University
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Climate scientist, Australian Bureau of Meteorology
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Professor of Bushfire Dynamics, School of Science, UNSW Canberra, UNSW Sydney
