Bush Fires
Firefighting officials are concerned with the effects climate change will bring on the frequency and intensity of bushfires under even a "low global warming" scenario. A 2006 report, prepared by CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research, Bushfire CRC, and the Australian Bureau of Meteorology, identified South Eastern Australia as one of the 3 most fire-prone areas in the world, and concluded that an increase in fire-weather risk is likely at most sites over the next several decades, including the average number of days when the Forest Fire Danger Index rating is very high or extreme. It also found that the combined frequencies of days with very high and extreme FFDI ratings are likely to increase 4-25% by 2020 and 15-70% by 2050, and that the increase in fire-weather risk is generally largest inland.
In 2009, the Black Saturday bushfires erupted after a period of record hot weather resulting in the loss of 173 lives and the destruction of 1830 homes, and the newly found homelessness of over 7,000 people. Australian Greens leader Bob Brown, argued that increased fire days due to climate change, was likely to blame for the fires but the Black Saturday Royal Commission found that the amount of fire fuel reduction burning should have been double of what had done.
Read more about this topic: Effects Of Global Warming On Australia
Famous quotes containing the words bush and/or fires:
“The personal things should be left out of platforms at conventions .... You can argue yourself blue in the face, and you’re not going to change each other’s minds. It’s a waste of your time and my time.”
—Barbara Bush (b. 1925)
“If you feed a man, and wash his clothes, and borne his children, you and that man are married, that man is yours. If you sweep a house, and tend its fires and fill its stoves, and there is love in you all the years you are doing this, then you and that house are married, that house is yours.”
—Truman Capote (20th century)