It’s cold now, but the debate over how to deal with higher bushfire risk is heating up. Firefighters and farmers around Australia are calling for more hazard reduction burns to reduce the risk of future…
Another summer, not quite like the other summers.
Steve Lacy
We all know what to expect from summer in Australia. From December through March it will be hot, there will be storms and floods, and there will be bush fires. It’s been like that for as long as history…
Natural disasters don’t just leave those affected rebuilding their lives but also struggling to find meaning behind the tragedy.
Facebook CFA Victoria/AAP
This summer another bout of floods, fires, and cyclones has struck, culminating most recently in out-of-control fires across Victoria in which at least one home was lost. When we see the loss of property…
Victoria’s alpine forest is burning more often, changing the landscape and reducing its ability to store carbon.
AAP Image/Australian Workers Union
In the high country of Victoria, firefighters are presently battling a large bushfire that is moving through the forests south of Harrietville and past the second highest mountain in Victoria, Mt. Feathertop…
Australia’s disaster management policies are in need of reform. But is a permanent disaster fund the right way to go about it?
AAP
Disasters are a fact of life. We need to talk about them. Floods, fires, earthquakes and other misadventures will happen in spite of our best plans. Their impact will sometimes be severe simply because…
Cows do more harm than good in national parks.
Howard Russell
According to the ABC, Senator John Williams has called for cattle grazing in national parks to reduce the risk of fire: The problem in our national parks is that when we have these savage fires with these…
We assume the trade-offs between fire prevention and impacts can be measured in terms of dollars, but it’s not that simple.
AAP Image/Tracey Nearmy
Fires are an inescapable part of life in Australia; they have been occurring for millennia, and regardless of our actions, they will continue. Much of the vegetation in Australia has evolved to be tolerant…
The effects of climate change are becoming more apparent - who will take responsibility for the delay in action?
AAP Image/Tracey Nearmy
The intensity and frequency of bush fires and firestorms around the globe, including recently in Australia, is a growing worry. Under conditions where mean land temperatures have increased by ~1.5 degrees…
Research shows that men are more likely to stay and fight bushfires than women.
AAP/Tony Phillips
“Record-breaking Heatwave”. “Australia Burns”. “Heroes of the Flames”. Headlines such as these will be familiar to anyone who has lived though a bad bushfire season in Australia. These past two weeks have…
There has been an outcry in Tasmania against legal restrictions on fuel reduction.
AAP Image/Twitter Botonaine
As the fires that started in Tasmania in early January continue to burn, a rising flow of letters to the editor, radio raves and internet utterances are questioning whether the state and local governments…
In many cases, first-hand accounts from citizens can be as valuable as reports from official sources.
AAP Image/Tony McDonough.
As dozens of bushfires continue to burn across the country (not least in New South Wales) many Australians find themselves unable to return home while many others have no home to return to. While we all…
A handout aerial image released by the New South Wales Rural Fire Service on 14 January 2013 shows the partly destroyed Siding Spring Observatory in the Warrumbungle National Park near Coonabarabran in New South Wales.
EPA/NSW Rural Fire Service
Four buildings containing telescopes at Australia’s largest astronomical observatory have suffered smoke damage in a bushfire, the Australian National University said today. Access to the Siding Spring…
The way disaster relief is offered to small businesses and primary producers following natural disasters is cumbersome and inefficient and needs a national approach.
When the embers have cooled or the floods have passed, who’s looking after the sustainability of small business in regional Australia? This year’s extreme heat and dry weather have again ensured Australia’s…
Bushfires and smoke surround the Siding Spring Observatory in Warrumbungle National Park near Coonabarabran.
AAP Image/NSW RFS
Australia’s biggest astronomical observatory was burned in a bushfire near Coonabarabran in Western NSW overnight, threatening over $100 million worth of research infrastructure and the largest optical…
Bushfire affected property at Sommers Bay in Tasmania, Thursday, Jan. 10, 2013. Residents of the worst-hit town Dunalley in the Tasmanian bushfires returned on Friday to see the full extent of the devastation.
AAP/David Beniuk
Radical circumstances (bushfires and natural disasters) flush out the mental illness in society. Whenever there’s a disaster, there’s a rush on hospital admissions for psychiatric problems. But on the…
An increasing trend towards more frequent and severe bushfires has created uncertainty over insurance coverage.
AAP
The Australian summer has become synonymous with bushfire risk. Tasmania, New South Wales and Victoria have witnessed devastating bushfires generating millions of dollars of damage. Many individuals have…
The town of Dunalley in south-eastern Tasmania was ravaged by bushfires.
AAP
Once again, bushfires are laying waste to Australian homes and communities, this time in Tasmania, with reports of 65 or more properties destroyed in Dunalley alone. Fire emergency services in other states…
Bushfires release CO2, but how much?
AAP Image/Kim Foale
“Indeed I guess there’ll be more CO2 emissions from these fires than there will be from coal-fired power stations for decades.” - acting Opposition leader, Warren Truss, January 9, 2013 On Wednesday, leader…
The rush to rebuild is understandable, but our attitude to bushfires will bring us more trouble in the long run.
AAP Image/Rob Blakers
It’s just a week into the new year and here in Tasmania we are already licking our wounds after disastrous fires in the state’s south. Mainlanders are facing similar events as extreme weather conditions…
It will take social change to prevent people deliberately lighting bushfires.
AAP Image/NSW Rural Fire Service, Barry Ballard
At this time of year, each year - the bushfire season - the complex nature of human behaviour hits home. Bushfires are a terrible event. The environmental destruction, the loss of property and sometimes…