Black Summer Bushfires (2019-2020): Australia's Fire Catastrophe

The Black Summer bushfires of 2019-2020 were among the most destructive fire seasons in Australia’s history. From June 2019 to March 2020, fires burned across the south-east of the continent, reaching their peak in December 2019 and January 2020. About 24 million hectares burned, 33 people died directly, more than 3,000 homes were destroyed and an estimated 3 billion animals were killed or displaced. Smoke shrouded Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra for weeks.

Background: drought and record heat

Australia has always had bushfires, and many native plants depend on fire to regenerate. But 2019 was the country’s hottest and driest year on record, according to the Bureau of Meteorology. The national mean temperature was 1.52 degrees Celsius above the 1961-1990 average, and rainfall was the lowest since national records began in 1900. Much of eastern Australia had been in severe drought since 2017.

A strong positive Indian Ocean Dipole, a natural pattern that brings dry conditions to Australia, deepened the drought during 2019. On 18 December 2019 Australia recorded its hottest day on record, with a national average maximum temperature of 41.9 degrees Celsius. Forests that normally remain too damp to burn intensely were tinder-dry.

The fire season unfolds

Fires broke out in northern New South Wales and Queensland as early as September 2019, months before the usual peak. On 26 October lightning ignited the Gospers Mountain fire north-west of Sydney. It grew to around 500,000 hectares, the largest single forest fire recorded in Australia, and later merged with other blazes.

On 11 November 2019, New South Wales declared a state of emergency as catastrophic fire danger was forecast for the Sydney region. Fires burned along much of the state’s coast and ranges through November and December. Volunteer firefighters of the New South Wales Rural Fire Service, many fighting for weeks without pay, became symbols of the crisis.

The New Year’s Eve fires

The worst days came at the turn of the year. On 30 and 31 December 2019, fires swept through communities on the far south coast of New South Wales and in East Gippsland, Victoria. In the coastal town of Mallacoota, thousands of residents and holidaymakers sheltered on the beach and wharf as the fire reached the town on New Year’s Eve, under a sky glowing red. The Australian navy later evacuated more than 1,000 people by sea.

New South Wales declared another state of emergency on 2 January 2020, and Victoria declared a state of disaster for the first time. On Kangaroo Island, off South Australia, fires burned nearly half the island, killing two people and devastating its wildlife. On 23 January a C-130 water-bombing aircraft crashed in the Snowy Mountains, killing its three American crew. At the end of January the Australian Capital Territory declared a state of emergency as the Orroral Valley fire threatened southern Canberra.

Firefighting and the national response

Australia’s firefighting relies heavily on volunteers. Tens of thousands of members of state rural fire services, including the New South Wales Rural Fire Service and Victoria’s Country Fire Authority, worked through the season, many for weeks at a time. In December 2019 the federal government agreed to compensate some volunteers for lost income, a step that had been resisted earlier in the crisis.

On 4 January 2020 the government called out up to 3,000 Army Reserve personnel, the first compulsory call-out of reservists in Australia’s history. The Australian Defence Force supported evacuations, delivered supplies, cleared roads and helped with recovery. Firefighters and specialists from the United States, Canada, New Zealand and other countries came to help, continuing a long tradition of exchanging crews between countries with opposite fire seasons.

The public response was enormous. Donations poured in from Australia and abroad, and one social media fundraiser alone raised more than 50 million Australian dollars for the New South Wales Rural Fire Service. A benefit concert, Fire Fight Australia, was held in Sydney on 16 February 2020.

Smoke, wildlife and losses

Smoke from the fires caused some of the worst air pollution ever recorded in Australian cities, at times many times the hazardous level. A study published in the Medical Journal of Australia in 2020 estimated that smoke exposure contributed to about 417 deaths and thousands of hospital admissions. Smoke drifted across the Pacific to New Zealand and as far as South America, and satellites tracked plumes rising into the stratosphere.

The ecological toll was enormous. A study commissioned by WWF-Australia estimated that nearly 3 billion animals were killed or displaced. Koalas in New South Wales were badly affected, and scientists warned that dozens of threatened species had lost much of their remaining habitat. Large parts of the Gondwana Rainforests of Australia World Heritage area burned, as did forests in the Blue Mountains World Heritage area west of Sydney. Wildlife carers and volunteers rescued injured animals, and governments funded emergency feeding programmes and surveys to assess which species were most at risk.

Farmers lost livestock, fences and crops, and tourism in fire-affected regions collapsed during the peak holiday season. Insurers received tens of thousands of claims worth more than 2 billion Australian dollars, and wider economic losses were estimated to be considerably higher.

By the numbers

Political response and royal commission

The fires became a political issue. Prime Minister Scott Morrison faced criticism for taking a family holiday in Hawaii in December 2019; he returned early and acknowledged the anger it caused. The crisis intensified debate about climate change, as scientists linked the extreme conditions to long-term warming, while others emphasised drought, fuel loads and land management.

Heavy rain in February 2020 extinguished or contained many fires, and on 13 February the New South Wales Rural Fire Service announced that all fires in the state were contained. On 20 February the federal government established the Royal Commission into National Natural Disaster Arrangements. Its report, released on 30 October 2020, made 80 recommendations, including a national state of emergency declaration, better coordination of firefighting aircraft, and improved warnings and air-quality information.

Myths and facts

During the crisis, claims circulated online that most of the fires had been deliberately lit by arsonists. Fire agencies and researchers found that this was not the case: arson started some fires, but most of the area burned came from fires ignited by lightning in remote country. Another common claim was that a lack of hazard-reduction burning was the main cause; experts agreed fuel management matters but noted that under such extreme conditions even recently burned areas caught fire.

Timeline

• 2019, September: Early fires burn in northern New South Wales and Queensland.
• 2019, 26 October: Lightning ignites the Gospers Mountain fire.
• 2019, 11 November: New South Wales declares a state of emergency.
• 2019, 18 December: Australia records its hottest day, with a national average maximum of 41.9 degrees Celsius.
• 2019, 31 December: Fire reaches Mallacoota; thousands shelter on the beach.
• 2020, 2 January: New South Wales declares a second state of emergency; Victoria declares a state of disaster.
• 2020, 23 January: A water-bombing aircraft crashes, killing three American crew.
• 2020, 13 February: After heavy rain, all New South Wales fires are declared contained.
• 2020, 30 October: The royal commission report is released.

Why it matters

Black Summer showed how drought and heat could push Australia’s fire-adapted landscapes beyond anything previously recorded, a decade after the Black Saturday bushfires of 2009. It reshaped national disaster planning and became a reference point in global discussions of climate and wildfire. Within weeks of the fires ending, Australia, like the rest of the world, faced a new emergency in the COVID-19 pandemic.