Is Australia in for a hot, dry summer of bushfires in 2024?
Former NSW Fire Commissioner Greg Mullins has also revealed where bushfires are likely to be a danger this summer.
Aussies are experiencing a welcome spell of warm weather, bringing relief to what’s been a damp winter for many of us. But there are already signs lives will be upended this summer as houses are burned, holidays cancelled and we could all be wearing masks once more.
Bushfires have already made their mark in Queensland. Two firefighters were hospitalised in the South Burnett region on Thursday after suffering burns. And no Australian state is expected to escape the blazes this summer.
While that might seem concerning, if we look just 16 years into the future, things will be different. And former NSW Fire Commissioner and veteran firefighter Greg Mullins has told Yahoo News he’s not “worried” about what’s to come.
“I'm not worried, I’m terrified. That would be a better word,” he clarified.
“The science says by 2040, what we saw during Black Summer will be a normal summer. And that’s not long. By 2060 it will be a cool one.”
He's right, it's isn't far into the future. If we look back 16 years it's easy to see how quickly time moves. It's 2008, The Dark Knight was topping the box office and Lady Gaga had released Paparazzi.
What's the bushfire risk for this year?
Many Aussies have already forgotten how bad last summer was — more land was burned here than during Black Summer fires of 2019-20. There were big fires in the NSW towns of Tenterfield and Scone. In Queensland they lost more homes than they did during Black Summer, and Western Australia was also badly scorched. And most people probably don’t know that the Northern Territory was particularly hard hit. It’s estimated 84 million hectares of desert and savannah burned in northern Australia.
Mullins doesn’t expect the east coast of Australia to experience conditions like Black Summer this year as that degree of drought takes months to develop.
But he’s warned he’s particularly concerned about parts of Tasmania and Western Australia where trees have died out in a dangerous new Great Browning phenomenon, creating increased fuel load.
Recent wet weather means there is a lot of moisture in the ground around Sydney. And this saturated soil is likely to promote a lot of plant growth, increasing the fuel load. But importantly, the vegetation isn’t stressed, so the tree tops are less likely to burn hot.
“But no one would be surprised to see massive grass fires later in the spring and summer in southwest, northern and central west NSW,” Mullins said.
“Because it dries out very quickly, and grass fires will even burn when the soil is damp.”
Victoria is expected to escape severe fire for slightly longer, with grass fires a possibility in the early part of next year.
Why it's harder to predict bushfire seasons now
What’s adding a layer of uncertainty to these predictions are complications caused by the cascading impacts of climate change.
Having been in the game a long time, he thinks it’s no longer possible to predict exactly how bad conditions will be, and how quickly they will alter.
“History is no longer a good indicator of what to expect. Not just in the future but next week,” he said.
“We’re all in uncharted territory. If we get suddenly hot and it stays that way, we could be in a flash drought within six weeks, and then we have big fires.”
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For instance, over in the United States and Canada where Aussie firefighters are currently stationed, there’s an increased fuel load because pine and spruce beetles are expanding their territory as the weather warms. Less snow cover also means the insects aren’t going dormant for long periods, resulting in the trees being attacked for longer.
“They’d used to make the trees a little bit sick, and they’d recover over winter. Now they don’t. They’re dying off, dropping pine needles and branches and leading to horrendous fuel loads,” he said.
“And we’re getting that around alpine areas on the NSW and Victorian border. There’s another beetle that’s killing off the snow gums. And then you’ve got alpine ash dying because there are too many fires and they need decades to regenerate.”
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