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.
Academic rigor, journalistic flair
Articles on Black Summer fires
Displaying 1 - 20 of 26 articles
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.
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.
We sampled 118 rivers and creeks before and after the Black Summer bushfires, searching for platypus DNA. Here’s what we found.
We used satellite data to create global maps of where and how fires are burning. Fire season lasts two weeks longer than it used to and fires are more intense. But there are regional differences.
Parents and emergency responders repeatedly said evacuation centres should have a separate space for families with very young children. Here’s what else we could do.
Until now, a limitation of records of past fires is that these have come from sediments laid down in lakes and bogs. Records for dryland regions have been lacking, but dune deposits can fill the gap.
Two decades of satellite data have allowed us to map fires across the country and identify areas facing high fire risks. Fire activity has increased in several major regions over the past decade.
Researchers focused on a site in the Illawarra region of NSW, which holds a unique record into the past.
In one finding, fire authorities chose to save a few farm sheds over 5,000 hectares of national park. Clearly, our fire management needs a reset.
The tiny golden-tipped bat roosts in the nests of rainforest birds. But high intensity extreme fires can increasingly reach into their unburnt sanctuaries.
The paltry spending means many species severely impacted by the megafires were left in desperate trouble, potentially pushing some closer to extinction.
Nature is both the trigger for, and answer to, the grief that will increasingly be with us.
The new paper also found some mammals are suffering due to a lack of fire.
The climate crisis demands innovations in our everyday infrastructures. If these changes are to be adopted en masse, finding the right fit between communities and infrastructures is vital.
On December 31 2019, the small NSW town of Cobargo was devastated by fires. Community arts projects are helping in the recovery.
In this era of mega-fires, diverse strategies are urgently needed so we can safely live with fire.
A significant proportion of volunteer firefighters report devastating post traumatic stress and thoughts of suicide. We need to support them better.
Top contributors
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Research Fellow in Environmental Science, University of Tasmania
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Professor, The University of Queensland
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Research fellow in Ecology and Conservation Science, The University of Melbourne
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Associate Professor in Quantitative Ecology, The University of Melbourne
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Postdoctoral research fellow, The University of Queensland
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Chief Research Scientist, CSIRO Environment; Executive Director, Global Carbon Project, CSIRO
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Adjunct professor, University of Sydney
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Professor of Conservation and Sustainable Livelihoods, Charles Darwin University
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Adjunct Associate Professor, School of Nursing and Midwifery, Western Sydney University
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Post Retirement Fellow, CSIRO
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Associate Professor, School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, The University of Queensland
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Associate Investigator, ARC Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage, UNSW Sydney
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Principal Research Scientist at NSW Primary Industries and Adjunct Fellow, Queensland University of Technology
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Lecturer in Communications and Media, University of Notre Dame Australia
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Senior Research Fellow, College of Engineering and Computer Science, Australian National University
