According to the official Australian government website [1] the main factors which increase the risk of a bushfire igniting is the presence and condition of a fuel, oxygen levels (or wind speeds) and ignition point or source.

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Most of the causes of wildfires are due to anthropogenic (Human) activity; Arson, Cigarettes, unattended fires, fireworks, equipment failures causing sparks or fires. Many of the causes of these fires are avoidable although sometimes they can start through pure chance and without any human intervention; lightning is the main cause of wildfires and bushfires that occur naturally as when the lightning reaches the ground it may strike a combustible object and there may be enough heat generated to start a fire. Volcanic activity has also been known to start these large-scale fires however this is very rare and usually not as devastating.

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A country that experiences a continuous threat of bushfires is Australia, they experience hundreds of wildfires each year at a varying scale and severity, who such event that stands out due to the sheer size and extent of the damage caused is the black Saturday bushfires which started on the 7th February and continued until the 14th March in 2009 in the state of Victoria, there were a total of 400 separate fires which broke out, most of which were caused by electrical fire from faulty powerlines and lightning, however some fires were thought to be started due to arson. The impact of the Black Saturday bushfires saw 173 fatalities with more than 2,000 homes destroyed, displacing over 7,500 people. The RSPCA estimated that up to one million animals were killed in the February fires causing a huge impact on various ecosystems in Victoria.

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Australia has always had to face wildfires which threaten the country both economically and environmentally, but the Black Saturday fires stood out due to their ferocity which some say was equal to 1,500 atomic bombs [2]

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More recently Australia has experienced a devastating bushfire which raged across most of the North and East Coast in September of 2019 with some fires lasting through until mid-February where extremely heavy rainstorms allowed the fires to be controlled by fire services.

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The impact of these fires was huge with more than 46 million acres (72,000 square miles) burned costing the Australian government an estimated $A3.5 billion. The agricultural industry suffered the most due to the fires with at least 100,000 sheep and more than 25,000 livestock were killed on kangaroo island alone. A reported 1 billion animals were killed in the wildfires and nearly 3000 homes were destroyed across the country displacing thousands of people [3]. This wildfire is arguably the largest disaster that Australia has faced in recent history rivalling the 2009 Black Saturday bushfires.

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Moving forward from the 2019/2020 events the Australian government has dramatically increased the amount of information given, concerning wildfires in an attempt to educate the population further about ways these fires can be controlled and limited. There are already various ways to mitigate against the spreading of wildfires which include firestops, which are breakages in an area of shrubland or forests to prevent a wildfire spreading into a new, unaffected area, and slash and burn techniques which involve controlled burning of a small area to remove the amount of combustible fuel in an given area likely to come under threat of a wildfire. Any more techniques focus on limiting the damage to residential or commercial building and lowering the total cost of the outbreak.

 

References

[1] This article was published by the Australian government and was accessed on the 03/03/2020, the article can be found via the link shown: https://www.ga.gov.au/scientific-topics/community-safety/bushfire

[2] BBC news, published on 7th February 2019, Black Saturday: The bushfire that shook Australia, this article can be found via the link shown: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-47038202

[3] Article published by the Centre for disaster philanthropy on February 17th, 2020 under the title of 2019/2020 Australian Bushfires and can be found via the link shown: https://disasterphilanthropy.org/disaster/2019-australian-wildfires/

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