On average bushfires burn an amazing 50,000 ha every year in Australia

From the other side of the world comes this extraordinary collection of data that few in Australia have compiled.

Satellite datasets carefully record a nation on fire. In a quiet year, only 20 million hectares burns, but in a busy year nearly 100 million hectares is scorched. A lot of this land area is in the far north and western part of the continent, which is hot and often arid. It’s not the same as the cool wet corner of South East Australia which has some of the tallest trees in the world. The fuel loads will not be anywhere near as high. But nonetheless, Australia is a nation of fire, especially across the “top end” where large areas burn each and every year.

So far this season the fires that gained so much attention around the world have burned around 10 million hectares, which is only a fifth of the usual area burnt, though presumably that will increase after satellite data is analyzed and the rest of the fire season plays out.

Faktantarkistus Yleinen points out that ten years ago a researcher showed there was a link between a strong Indian Ocean Dipole and bad forest fires on the […]