In Past 40 Years, Australia's Bushfire Season Has Grown Nearly One Month Longer, To 130 Days
Australia’s bushfire season now lasts for 130 days a year and has lengthened by almost a month in the past four decades, according to new research. In the south-east of the country, where forests and communities are still recovering from the unprecedented Black Summer bushfires of 2019 and 2020, there are now 11 extra days where the risk of fire is at its most extreme, compared with the late 1970s.
Even if global heating can be kept to 1.5C – the most ambitious temperature goal under international climate agreements – Australia’s fire season will continue to lengthen, the study published in the Reviews of Geophysics found. “These numbers are confronting. We no longer have a stable fire regime,” said Dr Pep Canadell, a climate scientist at CSIRO and a co-author of the study.
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According to the study, Australia’s annual fire season is now 27 days longer on average than it was in the late 1970s. In the south-east region, this increase is 24 days. Canadell said while climate models had suggested the country’s south-east would be exposed to longer fire seasons, the increases found in the study were greater than models had forecast.
He said that as the fire season got longer, it reduced the time available for firefighters to safely carry out controlled burning. A study led by Canadell last year found the frequency of very large forest fires had risen significantly since 2000. Even though many Australian forests are naturally adapted to fire, the recovery window was also shrinking.
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https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/jul/01/australias-bushfire-season-has-grown-by-almost-a-month-in-40-years-study-finds
