BE PREPARED: CLIMATE CHANGE AND THE VICTORIAN BUSHFIRE THREAT The Climate Council is an independent, crowd-funded organisation providing quality information on climate change to the Australian public. CLIMATECOUNCIL.ORG.AU Authorship: Professor Lesley Hughes Published by the Climate Council of Australia Limited ISBN: 978-0-9941866-5-2 (print) 978-0-9941866-4-5 (web) © Climate Council of Australia Ltd 2014 This work is copyright the Climate Council of Australia Ltd. All material contained in this work is copyright the Climate Council of Australia Ltd except where a third party source is indicated. Climate Council of Australia Ltd copyright material is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Australia License. To view a copy of this license visit http://creativecommons.org.au You are free to copy, communicate and adapt the Climate Council of Australia Ltd copyright material so long as you attribute the Climate Council of Australia Ltd and the authors in the following manner: Be Prepared: Climate Change and the Victorian bushfire threat by Professor Lesley Hughes (Climate Council of Australia). © Climate Council of Australia Limited 2014. Permission to use third party copyright content in this publication can be sought from the relevant third party copyright owner/s. This report is printed on 100% recycled paper. Professor Lesley Hughes Climate Councillor Professor Lesley Hughes Climate Councillor Introduction Residents of Victoria have experienced This report first describes the the serious consequences of bushfires. background context of fire and its Although Victoria comprises only history in Victoria. We then outline the 3% of Australia’s land mass, more link between bushfires and climate than half of all known fatalities due change, before considering how bushfire to bushfires have occurred in Victoria, danger weather is increasing in Victoria and the state has sustained around and what this means for the immediate 50% of the economic damage. future. We explore the impacts of fire Australians have always lived with on people, property, water supply and fire and its consequences, but climate biodiversity, before considering the change is increasing fire danger weather future influence of climate change and thus the risk of fires. It is time to on bushfires, and the implications think very seriously about the risks for Victorian fire managers, planners that future fires will pose. and emergency services. CLIMATECOUNCIL.ORG.AU Page 1 BE PREPARED: CLIMATE CHANGE AND THE VICTORIAN BUSHFIRE THREAT Key Findings 1. Climate change is increasing › Victoria’s 2014–15 bushfire season the risk of bushfires in Victoria outlook has been upgraded and lengthening the fire from an “above normal” fire season. season to a “major” fire season following record October warmth › Extreme fire weather has increased and expected ongoing hot, dry over the last 30 years in Victoria. conditions. The fire season in Victoria is starting earlier and lasting longer. 3. Recent severe fires in Victoria Fire weather has been extending have been influenced by into October and into March. record hot, dry conditions. › Australia is a fire prone country › The 2009 Black Saturday fires in and Victoria has always Victoria were preceded by a record experienced bushfires. Today breaking decade-long drought climate change is making hot days with a string of record hot years, hotter, and heatwaves longer and coupled with a severe heatwave more frequent, with increasing in the preceding week. drought conditions in Australia’s › In the lead up to the bushfires southeast. on Saturday 7th 2009, maximum › Record breaking heat and hotter temperatures were up to 23°C weather over the long term in above the February average Victoria has worsened fire weather in Victoria and record high and contributed to an increase temperatures for February were in the frequency and severity set in over 87% of the state. of bushfires. 4. In Victoria the economic 2. Victoria is the state most cost of bushfires, including affected by bushfires and is loss of life, livelihoods, on the frontline of increasing property damage and bushfire risk. emergency services › Over half of known fatalities due responses, is very high. to bushfires in Australia have › The total economic costs of occurred in Victoria. bushfires in Victoria in 2014 › Victoria has sustained around are projected to be more than 50% of the economic damage from $172 million. By around the middle bushfires despite covering only of the century these costs will 3% of Australia. more than double. Page 2 CLIMATECOUNCIL.ORG.AU › These projections do not › Increasing severity, frequency and incorporate increased bushfire the lengthening fire season will incident rates due to climate strain Victoria’s existing resources change and so could potentially for fighting and managing fires. be much higher. › By 2030, it has been estimated › Livestock losses were estimated that the number of professional at 13,000 in the 2003 Alpine fires firefighters in Victoria will need to in Victoria, 65,000 in the 2005–6 approximately double (compared to Grampians fire and more than 2010) to keep pace with increased 11,000 in the Black Saturday fires. population, asset value, and fire 5. In the future, Victoria is danger weather. very likely to experience an › Australia must cut its emissions increased number of days rapidly and deeply to join global with extreme fire danger. efforts to stabilise the world’s Communities, emergency climate and to reduce the risk services and health services of even more extreme events, across Victoria must prepare. including bushfires. › Fire severity and intensity is expected to increase substantially in coming decades in Victoria. The fire season will continue to lengthen, further reducing the opportunities for safe hazard reduction burning. CLIMATECOUNCIL.ORG.AU Page 3 BE PREPARED: CLIMATE CHANGE AND THE VICTORIAN BUSHFIRE THREAT 1. The nature of bushfires Fire has been a feature of the Australian The unprecedented ferocity of the environment for at least 65 million years 2009 Black Saturday bushfires in Victoria (Cary et al. 2012). Human management of saw a new ‘catastrophic’ category added fires also has a long history, starting with to the FFDI for events exceeding the fire use by indigenous Australians (“fire- existing scale. stick farming”) up to 60,000 years ago. The concept of “fire regimes” is Between 3% and 10% of Australia’s land important for understanding the area burns every year (Western Australian nature of bushfires in Australia, and Land Information Authority 2013). for assessing changes in fire behaviour In Australia, the Forest Fire Danger caused by both human and climatic Index (FFDI) is used to measure the factors (Figure 2). A fire regime describes degree of risk of fire in our forests a recurrent pattern of fire, with the most (Luke and Macarthur 1978). The important characteristics being the Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) and fire frequency, intensity, and seasonality management agencies use the FFDI of the fire. Significant changes in any to assess fire risk and issue warnings. of these features of a fire regime can The index was originally designed on a have a very important influence on scale from 0 to 100, with fires between its ecological and economic impacts 75 and 100 considered ‘extreme’. (Williams et al. 2009). Figure 1: Trees burn in Bullumwaal, Victoria Page 4 CLIMATECOUNCIL.ORG.AU 01 THE NATURE OF BUSHFIRES IN AUSTRALIA Figure 4. Main factors aecting bushfires 3 | People Main factors Fires may be deliberately started (arson) or be started by accident (e.g. by powerline fault). Human aecting activities can also reduce fire, either by direct suppression or by reducing fuel load by bushfires prescribed burning 1 | Ignition Fires can be started by lightning or people, either deliberately or accidentally 2 | Fuel Fires need fuel of sucient quantity & dryness. A wet year creates favourable conditions for vegetation growth. If 4 | Weather this is followed by a dry Fires are more likely to spread on hot, dry, season or year, fires are windy days. Hot weather also dries out fuel, more likely to spread and favouring fire spread and intensity become intense Figure 2: Main factors affecting bushfires CLIMATECOUNCIL.ORG.AU Page 6 CLIMATECOUNCIL.ORG.AU Page 5 BE PREPARED: CLIMATE CHANGE AND THE VICTORIAN BUSHFIRE THREAT Fire is a complex process that is very between rainfall and fuel is complex. variable in space and time. A fire Wet seasons can lead to increased needs to be started (ignition), it needs plant growth and therefore increase something to burn (fuel) and it needs fuel buildup in the months or years conditions that are conducive to its before a fire is ignited (Bradstock et spread (weather and topography) al. 2009). Warmer temperatures and (see Figure 2). Fire activity is strongly low rainfall in the period immediately influenced by weather, fuel, terrain, preceding an ignition, however, ignition agents and people. The most can lead to drier vegetation and important aspects of weather that soil, making the existing fuel more affect fire and fuels are temperature, flammable. Warmer temperatures precipitation, wind and humidity. Once can also be associated with a higher a fire is ignited, very hot days with low incidence of lightning activity (Jayaratne humidity and high winds are conducive and Kuleshov, 2006), increasing the to its spread. The type, amount, and risk of ignition. In many regions moisture level of fuel available are also local weather conditions are the most critical