What are bushfires?

Bushfires are large, uncontrolled fires that burn through native vegetation such as eucalyptus forest, grassland, and shrubland. They are an ancient and natural part of the Australian landscape but have become more frequent and more severe as the climate warms.

Many Australian plants, especially eucalyptus species, are adapted to fire. Their oily leaves burn intensely, and many species need fire to germinate their seeds or trigger new growth. Aboriginal peoples have used cool, controlled cultural burning for tens of thousands of years to manage country, encourage food plants, and prevent the build-up of fuel that drives catastrophic fires. Modern Australian fire agencies are increasingly working with Traditional Owners to revive cultural burning practices.

Australia's worst bushfire disasters include Black Saturday on 7 February 2009 in Victoria, when 173 people died, the most in any single fire event. The 2019 to 2020 Black Summer fires across south-eastern Australia burnt more than 24 million hectares, destroyed about 3,000 homes, killed 33 people directly and an estimated 400 more from smoke, and killed or displaced about three billion native animals. Those fires triggered the 2020 Royal Commission into National Natural Disaster Arrangements.

Bushfire response is led by state agencies. The Country Fire Authority (Victoria), the New South Wales Rural Fire Service, the Queensland Rural Fire Service, and equivalents in other states deploy mostly volunteer firefighters, supplemented by paid career staff and aerial water-bombers. The National Aerial Firefighting Centre coordinates large air tankers and the federal Disaster Recovery Funding Arrangements share recovery costs between Canberra and the states. Households in fire-prone areas are encouraged to prepare a bushfire survival plan and decide early in the season whether to leave or stay and defend.