Abstract
We examine the relationship between socio-economic disadvantage and exposure to environmental hazard with data from the catastrophic 2019–2020 Australian wildfires (Black Summer) that burnt at least 19 million hectares, thousands of buildings and was responsible for the deaths of 34 people and more than one billion animals. Combining data from the National Indicative Aggregated Fire Extent (NIAFE) and 2016 Socio-Economic Indexes for Areas (SEIFA), we estimate the correlation between wildfire hazard exposure and an index of community-level socio-economic disadvantage. Wildfire hazard exposure is measured as the interaction between the percentage of area burnt and proximity of the fire to settlements. The results reveal a significant positive relationship between fire hazard exposure and socio-economic disadvantage, such that the most socio-economically disadvantaged communities bore a disproportionately higher hazard exposure in the Black Summer than relatively advantaged communities. Our spatial analysis shows that the socio-economic disadvantage and wildfire hazard exposure relationship exists in inner regional, outer regional and remote areas of New South Wales and Victoria, the two worst-hit states of the Black Summer catastrophe. Our spatial analysis also finds that wildfire hazard exposure, even within a small geographical area, vary substantially depending on the socio-economic profiles of communities. A possible explanation for our findings is resource gaps for fire suppression and hazard reduction that favour communities with a greater level of socio-economic advantage.
Highlights
As the planet warms, the number of catastrophic wildfires is growing worldwide at an alarming rate (Jolly et al 2015; Lindenmayer and Taylor 2020)
Our findings make an important contribution to the understanding disaster risk, the first priority area for action of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015–2030 which urges for a greater integration of scientific knowledge and understanding on all dimensions of disaster risk to design appropriate preparedness and effective response strategies
Contrary to the findings reported by the studies from the USA, our results reveal that socio-economically disadvantaged communities experienced highest wildfire exposure during the 2019–2020 fire season in Australia
Summary
The number of catastrophic wildfires is growing worldwide at an alarming rate (Jolly et al 2015; Lindenmayer and Taylor 2020). Spatio-temporal trends from 1979 to 2013 reveal an 18.7% increase in global fire season length and 25% increase in fire susceptibility of the world’s vegetated surface (Jolly et al 2015). The frequency and intensity of large-scale wildfires have increased in the past two decades and is expected to increase further in the coming decades (Sharples et al 2016; Abram et al 2021; Lindenmayer and Taylor 2020). An increasing temperature trend is observed over much of Australia in the past century with the average surface air temperature increasing by 1 °C since 1910 (BoM and CSIRO 2018). The risks of higher temperatures are compounded in years where there is below average rainfall (Grose et al 2014; BoM and CSIRO 2018). South-eastern and south-western Australia are becoming drier, with May to July rainfall in south-eastern Australia seeing the largest decrease, by around 20% since 1970, and an 11% decrease in April to October rainfall since the late 1990s (BoM and CSIRO 2018)
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