We’re used to images of firefighters with hoses, but more of the firefighting effort goes to clearing vegetation than spraying with water.
Dean Lewins/AAP
How can a bushfire be described as “under control” if it’s still burning? Here’s an explanation of what the terms mean.
When bushfires break out anywhere across Australia, a new national bushfire defence force – like army reservists – could be deployed.
AAP/DFES Lewis van Bommel
There is a real risk a national inquiry could get bogged down in politics, or not lead to real change. But we need more federal action on bushfires. Our old approaches are broken.
Canberra’s hazardous air quality forced its universities to close campuses.
LUKAS COCH/AAP
Universities can help students affected by the bushfires by learning from what others have done in past crises.
About 195,000 Australians volunteer with the nation’s bushfire services. The NSW Rural Fire Service is the biggest, with more than 71,000 volunteers.
Dan Himbrechts/AAP
Australia’s rural firefighting organisations hold a special place in the nation’s heart. Part of what makes them so interesting is how they are organised and funded.
The United Nations predicts the world will be home to nearly 10 billion people by 2050 – making global greenhouse emission cuts ever more urgent.
NASA/Joshua Stevens
To be clear, I’m not advocating compulsory population control, here or anywhere. But we do need to consider a future with billions more people, many of them aspiring to live as Australians do now.
Young people, like teen activist Izzy Raj-Seppings, have directly participated in prevention and emergency relief efforts this bushfire season.
Joel Carrett/AAP
One problem with the Australian Curriculum bushfire content statements is that they are relatively abstract and detached from children’s lived experiences.
Glossy black cockatoo populations on Kangaroo Island have been decimated. But a few precious survivors remain.
Flickr
The destruction of recent fires is challenging our belief that with enough time, love and money, every threatened species can be saved. But there is plenty we can, and must, now do.
Many students’ lives have changed as they return to school, even those not directly affected by the fires.
JAMES GOURLEY/AAP
Rachael Jacobs, Western Sydney University and Carol Mutch, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau
Some students are grieving the loss of their homes or loved ones. Even those not directly affected by fires may be distressed by stories they’ve heard or images they’ve seen. How can schools help?
Actor Russell Crowe, who lives in Nana Glen, in northeast New South Wales, with neighbours. The area was hit by bushfires in early November 2019.
Russell Crowe/Twitter
Approximately 70 nationally threatened species have had at least 50% of their range burnt, while nearly 160 threatened species have had more than 20% burnt.
Regrowth is beginning, but the intangible costs will linger for decades if not generations.
Joel Carrett/AAP
Artists and entertainers have raised millions of dollars for the current bushfire crisis – so why are they still at the receiving end of so much criticism and so little funding and support?
Joan Didion’s The White Album at Sydney Festival created a space for community and connection at the heart of a crisis.
Reed Hutchison/Sydney Festival
Once you include insects, snails, worms and other small creatures, it’s clear the fires could cause one of the biggest extinction events of the modern era.
Remains of a burnt-out property at Bruthen South, Victoria. Only analysing the reasons buildings were destroyed will tell us if building codes need to be reformed.
James Ross/AAP
If the aim is to minimise the number of buildings damaged or destroyed in extreme fire events, Australia’s building regulations are clearly inadequate. But that’s not their aim.
After heavy rainfall, debris could wash into our waterways and threaten fish, water bugs, and other aquatic species.
Jarod Lyon
Fire debris flowing into Murray-Darling Basin will exacerbate the risk of fish and other aquatic life dying en masse in a repeat of the shocking fish kills of last summer.