2023 Bushfires: Australia’s Biggest in Over a Decade
Australia’s 2023 bushfire season was the biggest in over a decade, with fires burning across an area eight times as big as the 2019-20 Black Summer bushfires. These fires burned more than 84 million hectares of desert and savannah in northern Australia, an area larger than the whole of New South Wales.
The speed at which these fires spread was also incredible. In just a few weeks of September and October, more than 18 million hectares burned across the Barkly, Tanami, and Great Sandy Deserts of the Northern Territory and Western Australia.
Causes of the 2023 Bushfires
The main driver of these fires was the very large fuel loads, which were the result of wet growing seasons. While climate change can make fire conditions more extreme, in this case, it was not the main cause.
Lightning strikes also played a role in starting these fires, as they tend to do when fuel is dry and weather conditions are extreme.
The Importance of Indigenous Fire Management
For many thousands of years, Indigenous people have managed fuel loads across these vast landscapes using sophisticated fire management techniques. These practices have been recognized as the world’s best wildfire management system.
Efforts are only just beginning to bring good fire management back into these landscapes in a coordinated and large-scale way. In 2022-23, Indigenous ranger groups conducted extensive burning operations, which were astoundingly effective in reducing the severity of the 2023 fires.
The Way Forward
The only effective way to prevent these massive fires in very remote parts of Australia is through a long-term, well-funded strategy of using fire over our vast desert landscapes to control fuel, as was done during previous millennia.
