Lessons from the 2019/2020 ‘Black Summer Bushfires’ in Australia

Abstract

The widespread and massive bushfires in Australia in 2019 and 2020, known as the ‘Black Summer Bushfires’ resulted in extensive devastation with severe economic, social, environmental and political impacts, and tragically, loss of human lives and wildlife. Some of these impacts extended well after the bushfires to the medium and long term. Australia does have a system for disaster risk prevention, mitigation and management in place, including legal and policy instruments, and a range of capacity building and risk communication measures, and thus different steps were undertaken to manage the bushfires at the local, regional and national levels. There were also a number of key stakeholders involved including firefighting agencies and emergency services agencies, and public, private and civil society organizations, and importantly, the community with abundant volunteer initiatives evidencing strong social capital. However, despite the strong institutional structure and community social capital, various gaps and challenges were evident at different stages – before, during and after the bushfires – especially stemming from the uncertainty posed by climate change; particularly, recovery and rebuilding has proven highly challenging and even after two years recovery has not been achieved for many people, who need to rely on the social capital of their neighbours and community to cope with the difficult circumstances that they are confronted with. The Royal Commission report, which was produced as an inquiry after the bushfires provided recommendations for future policy and practice and in this paper a set of recommendations that are consistent with the report are presented. The future of bushfire risk reduction and management would need to be linked to both climate change mitigation and adaptation, with stronger support for community social capital.