Search

The MJA-Lancet Countdown on health and climate change was established in 2017, and produced its first Australian national assessment in 2018 and its first annual update in 2019. It examines indicators across five broad domains: climate change impacts, exposures and vulnerability; adaptation, planning and resilience for health; mitigation actions and health co-benefits; economics and finance; and public and political engagement. In the wake of the unprecedented and catastrophic 2019-20 Australian bushfire season, in this special report we present the 2020 update, with a focus on the relationship between health, climate change and bushfires, highlighting indicators that explore these linkages. In an environment of continuing increases in summer maximum temperatures and heatwave intensity, substantial increases in both fire risk and population exposure to bushfires are having an impact on Australia's health and economy. As a result of the "Black Summer" bushfires, the monthly airborne particulate matter less than 2.5 μm in diameter (PM 2.5 ) concentrations in New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory in December 2019 were the highest of any month in any state or territory over the period 2000-2019 at 26.0 μg/m 3 and 71.6 μg/m 3 respectively, and insured economic losses were $2.2 billion. We also found growing awareness of and engagement with the links between health and climate change, with a 50% increase in scientific publications and a doubling of newspaper articles on the topic in Australia in 2019 compared with 2018. However, despite clear and present need, Australia still lacks a nationwide adaptation plan for health. As Australia recovers from the compounded effects of the bushfires and the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, the health profession has a pivotal role to play. It is uniquely suited to integrate the response to these short term threats with the longer term public health implications of climate change, and to argue for the economic recovery from COVID-19 to align with and strengthen Australia's commitments under the Paris Agreement., (© 2020 AMPCo Pty Ltd.)

Open biomass burning (BB) events are a well-known primary aerosol source, resulting in the emission of significant amount of gaseous and particulate matter and affecting Earth's radiation budget. The 2019-2020 summer, known as "Australian Black Summer", showed exceptional duration and intensity of seasonal wildfires, triggered by high temperatures and severe droughts. Since increasing megafires are predicted due to expected climate changes, it is critical to study the impact of BB aerosol on a large scale and evaluate related transport processes. In this study, five aerosol samples (total suspended particles with a diameter >1 μm) were collected during the XXXV Italian Expedition in Antarctica on board of the R/V Laura Bassi from 6th of January to February 16, 2020, along the sailing route from Lyttelton harbor (New Zealand) to Terra Nova Bay (Antarctica). Levoglucosan and its isomers have been analyzed as markers of BB, together with polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), sucrose and alcohol sugars. Ionic species and carboxylic acids have been analyzed to support the identification of aerosol sources and its aging. Results showed high levoglucosan concentrations (325-1266 pg m -3 ) during the campaign, suggesting the widespread presence of smoke in the region, because of huge wildfire releases. Backward trajectories indicated the presence of long-range atmospheric transport from South America, probably carrying wildfires plume, in agreement with literature. Regional sources have been suggested for PAHs, particularly for 3-4 rings' compounds; monosaccharides, sucrose, arabitol, and mannitol were related to marine and biogenic contributions. In a warming climate scenario, more frequent and extensive wildfire episodes are expected in Australia, potentially altering albedo, aerosol radiative properties, and cloud interactions. Therefore, it is crucial to strengthens the investigations on the regional climatic effects of these events in Antarctica., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.)

Prescribed burning is a forest management practice that is widely used in Australia to reduce the risk of damaging wildfires. It can affect both carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) cycling in the forest and thereby influence the soil-atmosphere exchange of major greenhouse gases, i.e. carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O). To quantify the impact of a prescribed burning (conducted on 27 May 2014) on greenhouse gas exchange and the potential controlling mechanisms, we carried out a series of field measurements before (August 2013) and after (August 2014 and November 2014) the fire. Gas exchange rates were determined at 4 replicate sites which were burned during the combustion and another 4 adjacent unburned sites located in green islands, using a set of static chambers. Surface soil properties including temperature, pH, moisture, soil C and N pools were also determined either by in situ measurement or by analysing surface 10 cm soil samples. All of the chamber measurements indicated a net sink of atmospheric CH4, with mean CH4 uptake ranging from 1.15 to 1.99 mg m-2 day-1. The burning significantly enhanced CH4 uptake as indicated by the significant higher CH4 uptake rates at the burned sites measured in August 2014. While within the next 3 months the CH4 uptake rate was recovered to pre-burning levels. Mean CO2 emission from forest soils ranged from 2721.76 to 7113.49 mg m-2 day-1. The effect of prescribed burning on CO2 emission was limited within the first 3 months, as no significant difference was observed between the burned and the adjacent unburned sites in both August and November 2014. The temporal dynamics of the CO2 emission presented more seasonal variations, rather than burning effects. The N2O emission at the studied sites was quite low, and no significant impact of burning was observed. The changes in understory plants and litter layers, surface soil temperature, C and N substrate availability and microbial activities, resulting from the burning, were the factors that controlled the greenhouse gas exchanges. Our results suggested that the low intensity prescribed burning would decrease soil CO2 emission and increase CH4 uptake, however, this effect would be present within a relative short period. Only slight changes in the surface soil during the combustion and very limited damages in the mineral soils supported the quick recovery of the greenhouse gas exchange rates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Forest Fire Danger Index (FFDI) is the main measure used in Australia for estimating fire risk. Recent work by the authors showed that the FFDI forms stable state regimes, nominated as fire climate regimes. These regimes shifted to greater intensity in southern and eastern Australia around the year 2000 and, a decade later, further north. Reductions in atmospheric moisture were the primary contributor. These changes have not been fully incorporated into future projections. This paper compares the recent regime shifts with the most recent national projections of FFDI, published in 2015. They show that for most states and regions, the 2030 upper limit is approached or exceeded by the recent shift, except for two states with large arid zones, South Australia and Western Australia. Methods for attributing past changes, constructing projections, and the inability of climate models to reproduce the recent decreases in atmospheric moisture, all contribute to these underestimates. To address these shortcomings, we make some suggestions to modify efforts aiming to develop seamless predictions and projections of future fire risk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bushfires account for 40% of fatalities associated with declared disasters in Australia. A significant proportion of these fatalities occur closer to forested areas because over 90% of the recorded locations for the deaths were within 100 metres of bushland areas. Despite this, there has been an increase in people relocating to now-considered high-risk bushfire areas. This paper considers why people live in bushfire-prone areas particularly following Australia's 2019-20 catastrophic summer bushfires. The study used a qualitative approach and conducted 30 semi-structured interviews with people living in the southeast part of New South Wales; a region hardest hit during the 2019-20 summer bushfire season. The interviews identified 7 reasons, as given by the participants, concerning why they thought people continued to move near bushland. The reasons were a quest for a 'tree change', proximity to family, location beauty, place attachment, work-related needs, property affordability and partnerrelated factors. These reasons were categorised into internal and external factors. This study serves as a useful reference when creating ways to encourage early self-evacuation and, ultimately, to reduce injuries and fatalities. These findings are not exhaustive and do not represent the entirety of New South Wales nor Australia or other countries. However, they represent a sample of lived experience by participants. Future studies might cover wider areas and include great numbers of participants and so garner diverse opinions about locations where people live and the hazard experienced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Evaluation of fire severity reduction strategies requires the quantification of intervention outcomes and, more broadly, the extent to which fuel characteristics affect fire severity. However, investigations are currently limited by the availability of accurate data on fire severity predictors, particularly relating to fuel. Here, we used airborne LiDAR data collected before the 2019-20 Australian Black Summer fires to investigate the contribution of fuel structure to fire severity under a range of weather conditions. Fire severity was estimated using the Relative Burn Ratio calculated from Sentinel-2 optical remote sensing imagery. We modelled the effects of various fuel structure estimates and other environmental predictors using Random Forest models. In addition to variables estimated at each observation point, we investigated the influence of surrounding landscape characteristics using an innovative method to estimate fireline progression direction. Our models explained 63-76% of fire severity variance using parsimonious predictor sets. Fuel cover in the understorey and canopy, and vertical vegetation heterogeneity, were positively associated with fire severity. Up-fire burnt area and recent planned and unplanned fire reduced fire severity, whereby unplanned fire provided a longer-lasting reduction of fire severity (up to 15 years) than planned fire (up to 10 years). Although fuel structure and land management effects were important predictors, weather and canopy height effects were dominant. By mapping continuous interactions between weather and fuel-related variables, we found strong evidence of diminishing fuel effects below 20-40% relative air humidity. While our findings suggest that land management interventions can provide meaningful fire severity reduction, they also highlight the risk of warmer and drier future climates constraining these advantages., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2023 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.)

The establishment of sustainable, low-intensity fire regimes is a pressing global challenge given escalating risk of wildfire driven by climate change. Globally, colonialism and industrialisation have disrupted traditional fire management, such as Indigenous patch burning and silvo-pastoral practices, leading to substantial build-up of fuel and increased fire risk. The disruption of fire regimes in southeastern Tasmania has led to dense even-aged regrowth in wet forests that are prone to crown fires, and dense Allocasuarina-dominated understoreys in dry forests that burn at high intensities. Here, we investigated the effectiveness of several fire management interventions at reducing fire risk. These interventions involved prescribed burning or mechanical understorey removal techniques. We focused on wet and dry Eucalyptus-dominated sclerophyll forests on the slopes of kunanyi/Mt. Wellington in Hobart, Tasmania, Australia. We modelled potential fire behaviour in these treated wet and dry forests using fire behaviour equations based on measurements of fuel load, vegetation structure, understorey microclimate and regional meteorological data. We found that (a) fuel treatments were effective in wet and dry forests in reducing fuel load, though each targeted different layers, (b) both mechanical treatments and prescribed burning resulted in slightly drier, and hence more fire prone understorey microclimate, and (c) all treatments reduced predicted subsequent fire severity by roughly 2-4 fold. Our results highlight the importance of reducing fuel loads, even though fuel treatments make forest microclimates drier, and hence fuel more flammable. Our finding of the effectiveness of mechanical treatments in lowering fire risk enables managers to reduce fuels without the risk of uncontrolled fires and smoke pollution that is associated with prescribed burning. Understanding the economic and ecological costs and benefits of mechanic treatment compared to prescribed burning requires further research., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2023 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.)

Extreme fire events have increased across south-eastern Australia owing to warmer and drier conditions driven by anthropogenic climate change. Fuel reduction burning is widely applied to reduce the occurrence and severity of wildfires; however, targeted assessment of the effectiveness of this practice is limited, especially under extreme climatic conditions. Our study utilises fire severity atlases for fuel reduction burns and wildfires to examine: (i) patterns in the extent of fuel treatment within planned burns (i.e., burn coverage) across different fire management zones, and; (ii) the effect of fuel reduction burning on the severity of wildfires under extreme climatic conditions. We assessed the effect of fuel reduction burning on wildfire severity across temporal and spatial scales (i.e., point and local landscape), while accounting for burn coverage and fire weather. Fuel reduction burn coverage was substantially lower (∼20-30%) than desired targets in fuel management zones focused on asset protection, but within the desired range in zones that focus on ecological objectives. At the point scale, wildfire severity was moderated in treated areas for at least 2-3 years after fuel treatment in shrubland and 3-5 years in forests, relative to areas that did not receive fuel reduction treatments (i.e., unburnt patches). Fuel availability strongly limited fire occurrence and severity within the first 18 months of fuel reduction burning, irrespective of fire weather. Fire weather was the dominant driver of high severity canopy defoliating fire by ∼3-5 years after fuel treatment. At the local landscape scale (i.e., 250 ha), the extent of high canopy scorch decreased marginally as the extent of recently (<5 years) treated fuels increased, though there was a high level of uncertainty around the effect of recent fuel treatment. Our findings demonstrate that during extreme fire events, very recent (i.e., <3 years) fuel reduction burning can aid wildfire suppression locally (i.e., near assets) but will have a highly variable effect on the extent and severity of wildfires at larger scales. The patchy coverage of fuel reduction burns in the wildland-urban interface indicates that considerable residual fuel hazard will often be present within the bounds of fuel reduction burns., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Crown Copyright © 2023. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

In this paper, I reflect on the experience of the Australian summer bushfires of 2019/2020 and the different ways forms of media reporting amplified its affects. Across broadcast media, local response, social media and personal account, I chart alternate stories during and after the event-as-spectacle. Taking into account the socio-political climate, the climatic atmosphere and the ongoing anxiety after the fires, I consider the use of apocalyptic words alongside the repetitive pairing of affective images to question what these might reveal about ourselves. Through the lens of affect attention is drawn to the many interacting conditions and forces that coalesce and gather as attachments, ideas, or assumptions and how these might influence perceptions of the event and actions in the aftermath of fire threat. Woven into the paper is my personal writing alongside details drawn from select Instagram accounts recording the everyday labours of caring for a place during and after the fires. As a counter-narrative to obliteration and all things lost, these missives disclose a different understanding of the event, long after the news media has moved on. For the authors and followers alike, lessons are revealed through attention to the land and hope in the processes of everyday encounters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Animals on a grand scale are victims of climate change and of natural disaster. With no voice within human cultures, their plight can be silenced and forgotten once an extreme weather event is over and when media coverage of the devastation has ceased. The creative arts have an important role to play in raising public awareness of and empathy for animals impacted by natural disaster. This paper presents a critical discourse analysis of the Australian play Fire by Scott Alderdice (2017), framed by Animal Studies perspectives. The voices of the animals in Fire, as expressed through language -- dialogue and narration -- are the focus of the analysis to determine how the play engages in the concepts of considering other-than-human interests; imagining and representing animals and their significance; personifying species' presence using human speech to offset facelessness; and inspiring humans to take responsibility in this time of climate crisis and natural disaster. Fire provides an exemplar for theatrical expression giving voice to animals in times of crisis. An examination of the narration and dialogue of the animal characters reveals a respectful representation of native Australian animals, who are shown to be sentient and social beings intimately entwined with the environment in which they live. The language use by the animals throughout elicits recognition and empathy and subsequently feelings of grief and of guilt. The play inspires humans to take responsibility by considering animals' perspectives and interests; understanding their significance in the world; and performing our role to protect the natural environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims: We investigate the associations between major Australian climate drivers and extreme weekly fire danger throughout the year. Methods: We use a composite-based approach, relating the probability of top-decile observed potential fire intensity to the positive and negative modes of the El Niño Southern Oscillation, Indian Ocean Dipole, Madden–Julian Oscillation, Southern Annular Mode, split-flow blocking and Subtropical Ridge Tasman Highs, both concurrently and at a variety of lag times. Key results: The chance of extreme fire danger increases over broad regions of the continent in response to El Niño and positive Indian Ocean Dipole events, the negative mode of the Southern Annular Mode, split-flow Blocking Index and Subtropical Ridge Tasman High, and Madden–Julian Oscillation phases 5, 6, 2 and 8 in Austral summer, autumn, winter and spring respectively. These relationships exist not only concurrently, but also when a climate event occurs up to 6 months ahead of the season of interest. Conclusions: These findings highlight the importance of considering the influence of diverse climate drivers, at a range of temporal lag periods, in understanding and predicting extreme fire danger. Implications: The results of this study may aid in the development of effective fire management strategies and decision-making processes to mitigate the impacts of fire events in Australia. This paper explores the relationships between the major forces influencing Australian weather and climate, and the chance of severe fire seasons. The findings could be valuable in decision making and preparation for upcoming fire seasons to avoid more seasons with devastating outcomes such as the 2019–2020 Black Summer. This article belongs to the Collection Fire and Climate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Exposure to wildfire smoke has been linked with a range of health outcomes. However, to date, evidence is limited for the association between wildfire-specific PM 2.5 , a primary emission of wildfire smoke, and adverse birth outcomes., Objective: We aimed to estimate the risk and burden of preterm birth/term low birth weight, associated with maternal exposure to wildfire-specific PM 2.5 ., Methods: A total of 330,884 birth records with maternal information were collected from the New South Wales Australia from 2015 to 2019, covering 523 residential communities. Daily wildfire-specific PM 2.5 at a 0.25° × 0.25° (≈ 25 km × 25 km) resolution was estimated by a machine learning method combining 3-D chemical transport model (GEOS-Chem) and reanalysis meteorological data. Cox proportional hazards models were implemented to evaluate the association between wildfire-specific PM 2.5 and preterm birth/term low birth weight. Number and fraction of preterm birth/term low birth weight attributable to wildfire-specific PM 2.5 during pregnancy were calculated., Results: Per one interquartile-range rise in wildfire-specific PM 2.5 was found to be associated with 6.9% (HR: 1.069, 95% CI: 1.058-1.081) increased risk of preterm birth and 3.6% (HR: 1.036, 95% CI: 1.014-1.058) higher risk of term low birth weight. The most susceptible gestational window was the 2nd trimester for preterm birth whereas the 1st for term low birth weight. We estimated that 14.30% preterm births and 8.04% term low birth weight cases were attributable to maternal exposure to wildfire-specific PM 2.5 during the whole pregnancy. Male infants and mothers aged ≥ 40, experiencing temperature extremes or living in the inner region, and concepted during spring had higher risks of preterm birth/term low birth weight associated with wildfire-specific PM 2.5 . Comparatively, mothers with advanced age have a higher risk of preterm birth while younger mothers were more likely to deliver term newborns with low birth weight, when being exposed to wildfire-specific PM 2.5 . Pregnancy-induced hypertension enhanced the risk of preterm birth associated with wildfire-specific PM 2.5 ., Conclusions: This study strengthened robust evidence on the enhanced risk of preterm birth/term low birth weight associated with maternal exposure to wildfire-specific PM 2.5 . In light of higher frequency and intensity of wildfire occurrences globally, more special attention should be paid to pregnant women by policy makers., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2023 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.)

Increasing numbers of households are impacted by disasters due to population growth, increasing development in higher risk areas, and climate change. While emergency management in Australia aims to reduce quantifiable losses, lived disaster and recovery experiences are relatively mute, with implications for mitigation and post‐disaster support. This paper draws on findings from a research project that set out to examine the role of insurance in household recovery after the 2013 Blue Mountains bushfires in New South Wales. Among the 19 interview participants, prioritisation of the needs of children was found to hinder personal recovery. Drawing on this key finding, this paper focuses on parents' emotion work and emotions surrounding home. Innate desires to provide good care monopolised parents' emotions and emotional outlets, as they worked to conceal threats and (re)establish a sense of normalcy. Emotion work drained parents, as did threats to, and the loss of, "home" created through "dwelling." When homes burnt, so too did memories of children embodied in that home – memories that had permeated the material space. This sense of loss intensified when informing children about losses – an act that breached parents' protective instincts and necessitated additional emotional care. Emotions escalated as capacities for care were challenged or eroded in the absence of home contents that normally would have anchored daily routines and provided stability. Replacing such items dominated parents' recovery efforts – efforts encumbered by competing recovery demands, yet facilitated to some degree by insurance safety‐nets. These emotions impacted parents' mental and physical wellbeing in the four years that separated the bushfires and the interviews. While there is considerable literature outlining parents' role in lessening disaster impacts on children, few studies examine parents' capacity to do so. In addressing this gap, this paper highlights avenues to improve psychosocial aspects of disaster recovery. Parenting is challenging at the best of times, let alone in disasters. Focusing on the 2013 Blue Mountains bushfires in Australia, this paper explores the emotions involved in caring for children while surviving and recovering from a disaster. Insights from "emotion work" and the loss of "home" – structures bound with memories and resources for good care – highlight both demands on parents and avenues to improve post‐disaster wellbeing for families. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Australian Journal of Political Science is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The repeated occurrence of natural disasters is impacting communities globally and these effects are expected to worsen as the global temperatures continue to rise. In Australia, communities on the East Coast are now bracing for another dry hot summer along with the accompanying threat of bushfire. In this context, many governments have promoted the idea of building resilient communities in order to try to mitigate the danger and threat to communities. The idea of enhancing resilience is both appealing and problematic: appealing, because it signifies the power of the human spirit to overcome adversity: problematic, because such a term can easily be exploited to support ideological beliefs about independence and self-sufficiency. This paper explores the notion of enhancing resilience in smaller rural communities, specifically in the context of recovery from the fires in 2019/2020. By adopting a case study approach, we argue first, that whilst the idea of resilience has value, it needs to be equalised by a robust understanding of the contextual factors that may increase vulnerability (Solangaarachchi Griffin & Doherty, 2012); with this in mind, we suggest that developing adaptive capacity is more fitting because of the way it draws our attention to the changes that are necessary for responding to the changes in climate. Second, we argue that if communities are to be assisted to adapt in order to survive the effects of climate change, this work will require an increased focus on community development in the medium and long-term stages of recovery, so that communities are assisted, supported and empowered to engage preparedness projects in the event of disasters occurring in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Novel combinations of climatic conditions due to climate change and prolonged fire seasons have contributed to an increased occurrence of "megafires". Such large-scale fires pose an unknown threat to biodiversity due to the increased extent and severity of burn. Assessments of wildfires often focus on terrestrial ecosystems and effects on aquatic habitats are less documented, particularly in coastal environments. In a novel application of eDNA techniques, we assessed the impacts of the 2019-2020 Australian wildfires on the diversity of estuarine benthic sediment communities in six estuaries in NSW, Australia, before and after the fires. Estuaries differed in area of catchment burnt (0-92%) and amount of vegetative buffer that remained post-fire between burnt areas and waterways. We found greater dissimilarities in the composition and abundance of eukaryotic and bacterial sediment communities in estuaries from burnt catchments with no buffer compared to those with an intact buffer or from unburnt catchments. Shifts in composition in highly burnt catchments were associated with increased concentrations of nutrients, carbon, including fire-derived pyrogenic carbon, and copper, which was representative of multiple highly correlated trace metals. Changes in the relative abundances of certain taxonomic groups, such as sulfate-reducing and nitrifying bacterial groups, in the most impacted estuaries indicate potential consequences for the functioning of sediment communities. These results provide a unique demonstration of the use of eDNA to identify wildfire impacts on ecological communities and emphasize the importance of vegetative buffers in limiting wildfire-associated impacts., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2022 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

The coronavirus pandemic entered Australia as the country was emerging from many months of catastrophic bushfires throughout the summer of 2019-2020. The unprecedented and rapidly evolving nature of these disasters highlighted the need for timely, evidence-based knowledge to support individuals and organisations responding to new, complex, and changing situations in the absence of established research, evidence, and resources. Social workers are uniquely equipped with knowledge and skills that enable us to understand and respond to diverse social, emotional, and systemic variables within a wide range of environments. This paper presents the reflection of two Australian social work academics who responded to a call for knowledge to support work with older adults during the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic. This innovation drew on key social work principles as we challenged ageist discourses and equipped practitioners with resources to respond to identified risks emerging from the increased social isolation of older adults due to public health requirements. This reflection explores the process of responding to the perceived need for information and guidance and suggests a practice model for rapidly disseminating knowledge in a climate of change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bushfires are a global climate change challenge and a critical disaster issue for Australia. Adaptive governance has emerged as a model to address socio-ecological issues such as disasters. This paper discusses four principles of adaptive governance: polycentric institutions, collaboration, social learning, and reflexivity and examines how these are reflected in the policy and practice of bushfire management in the South West of Australia. Findings demonstrate that current disaster policy discourse, which influences bushfire management, increasingly advocates for principles associated with adaptive governance. However, a case study on the Shire of Augusta-Margaret River found that the extent to which these principles translate into bushfire management practice is largely influenced by interpretive worldview policy frames. The paper suggests that governance for bushfire management could become more adaptive in its approach by incorporating more collaborative management activities, deliberative policy processes and reflexive practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Confronted with an imminent bushfire threat, Australian householders can respond by evacuating, waiting to see what the bushfire does before deciding, or remaining to defend property from the fire. This decision-making is central to householders' survival because late evacuation has been associated with fatalities. North Americans who seek alternatives to mandatory evacuation from wildfires are confronted with similar choices. Lindell and Perry's Protective Action Decision Model (PADM) has been extensively used to analyse the behaviour and decision-making of people subject to threat from a wide range of hazards and has acquired the status of a theory of hazard decision-making. It has not been widely used for the study of hazards in Australia. This paper addresses the question of how the PADM can be applied to the analysis of behaviour in Australian bushfires and North American wildfire, and whether the model requires adjusting for effective use in a context where householders choose their protective response rather than having decisions made for them. The paper addresses Australian bushfire policy, which emphasises the dangers of staying to defend during extreme fire weather conditions and promotes leaving early as the safer option but allows householders to decide whether to 'stay or go' during a bushfire. This Australian policy approach impacts key elements of the PADM, most importantly how long-run hazard adjustments, preparatory, mitigating and equipping actions, effect the perception of evacuating or remaining. The paper concludes that the PADM should be modified to reflect the complexity of choice confronting Australian bushfire prone householders and North Americans considering alternatives to mandatory evacuation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The dry weight of biomass to be consumed by fire in the wildland – urban interface (WUI) plays an important role in the spread of fire inside the WUI. In this paper, we present a model of grassland fire spread based on fuel load. The herbaceous stratum is represented by a heterogeneous fuel layer, with characteristics close to the real one. Fire propagation is simulated by using a two-phase model. Thirteen fire experiments in eastern Australia were used to test the predictive capacity of the model. The rates of spread are on the whole relatively well predicted. Using the fuel layer model to simulate fire spread, we tested how fuel load affects fire behavior. The results show that the fire spread rate does not systematically decrease with the increasing of fuel load. However, there may be a critical fuel load for rapid rate of spread, below or above which the rate of spread decreases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A wildfire, an unplanned fire that is mainly uncontrolled and originates in combustible vegetation in rural or urban settings, is one of the most pervasive natural catastrophes in some areas, such as Siberia, California and Australia. Many studies, such as standard reviews, have been undertaken to look into the works of literature on wildfires or forest fires and their effects on aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems. Regrettably, conventional literature reviews failed to identify the important researchers, evolving complexities, emerging research hotspots, trends and opportunities for further research on the ground of wildfire study. The present study employs bibliometric analysis to investigate this study area qualitatively and quantitatively. The Scopus database systems and Web of Science Core Collection yielded 78 qualifying papers, which were then evaluated using Biblioshiny (A bibliometrix tool of R-studio). According to the statistics, the discipline is expanding at a pace that is 13.68% faster than average. So far, three key periods of transformation have been documented: preliminary evolution (8 articles; 1999–2005), gentle evolution (14 articles; 2006–2013) and quick evolution (56 articles; 2014 to 2021). Forest Ecology and Management and Science journals have the highest number of publications, accounting for 7.70% of total wildfire-related articles published from 1999 to 2021. However, recent data indicate that investigators are shifting their focus to wildfires, with the term 'Australia' having the highest frequency (91) and 'wildfire' having the second highest (58) as the most appeared keywords. The present study will provide a foundation for future research on wildfire incidence and management by receiving information by synthesising previously published literature in Australia and around the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Calls for the adoption of a systems approach to chronic disease prevention date back at least ten years because of the potential to empower communities to identify and address the complex causes of overnutrition, undernutrition and climate change. Australia, like many countries, has high levels of obesity and extreme climate events. The Reflexive Evidence and Systems interventions to Prevent Obesity and Non-communicable Disease (RESPOND) trial aims to prevent unhealthy weight gain in children in 10 intervention and two pilot communities in north-east Victoria, Australia using community-based participatory approaches informed by systems science. Intervention activities co-designed in 2019 were disrupted by COVID-19 and bushfires. This paper explores the impacts of these 'shocks' on the local prevention workforce to implement actions within communities. Methods: A case study design involving one-hour online focus groups and an on-line survey (November 2021-February 2022). Purposive sampling was used to achieve diverse representation from RESPOND stakeholders including local council, health services, primary care partnerships and department of health. The focus group interview schedule and survey questions were based on Durlak and DuPre's implementation factors. Results: Twenty-nine participants from seven different communities participated in at least one of nine focus groups to discuss the impacts of COVID-19 and bushfires on localised implementation. Twenty-eight participants (97% of focus group sample) also completed the on-line survey. Implementation of RESPOND stalled or stopped in most communities due to bushfires and/or COVID-19. These shocks resulted in organisational priorities changing, loss of momentum for implementation, redeployment of human resources, culminating in fatigue and exhaustion. Participants reported adaptation of RESPOND, but implementation was slowed due to limited resources. Conclusion: Further research is needed to advance risk management strategies and protect resources within health promotion. System shocks such as bushfires and COVID-19 are inevitable, and despite multiple adaptation opportunities, this intervention approach was not 'shock proof'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a spatiotemporal clustering algorithm and its implementation in the R package spotoroo. This work is motivated by the catastrophic bushfires in Australia throughout the summer of 2019-2020 and made possible by the availability of satellite hotspot data. The algorithm is inspired by two existing spatiotemporal clustering algorithms but makes enhancements to cluster points spatially in conjunction with their movement across consecutive time periods. It also allows for the adjustment of key parameters, if required, for different locations and satellite data sources. Bushfire data from Victoria, Australia, is used to illustrate the algorithm and its use within the package. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Numerous hectares of land are destroyed by wildfires every year, causing harm to the environment, the economy, and the ecology. More than fifty million acres have burned in several states as a result of recent forest fires in the Western United States and Australia. According to scientific predictions, as the climate warms and dries, wildfires will become more intense and frequent, as well as more dangerous. These unavoidable catastrophes emphasize how important early wildfire detection and prevention are. The energy management system described in this paper uses an unmanned aircraft system (UAS) with air quality sensors (AQSs) to monitor spot fires before they spread. The goal was to develop an efficient autonomous patrolling system that detects early wildfires while maximizing the battery life of the UAS to cover broad areas. The UAS will send real-time data (sensor readings, thermal imaging, etc.) to a nearby base station (BS) when a wildfire is discovered. An optimization model was developed to minimize the total amount of energy used by the UAS while maintaining the required levels of data quality. Finally, the simulations showed the performance of the proposed solution under different stability conditions and for different minimum data rate types. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Natural disasters can significantly impact children's health, development, and wellbeing, as well as their access to education and support services (including speech-language pathology). Children's needs are often overlooked in the urgent aftermath of natural disasters. This is especially true for children with communication difficulties. This commentary explores the impacts of bushfire on Australian children, to propose a sustainable, community-based approach to supporting children's health, wellbeing, and communication. The Royal Far West Bushfire Recovery Program, a multidisciplinary allied health program, supported children's recovery, resilience, and development in the aftermath of Australia's Black Summer bushfires in 2019–2020. Children learnt coping strategies and were more able to communicate with adults and peers about their feelings and experiences, but residual impacts of bushfires remained for some children. Allied health telepractice services, including speech-language pathology, enhanced access for vulnerable children, highlighting the potential for technology to provide high-quality services to support recovery, particularly in remote areas. Climate change increases the frequency and severity of bushfires and other natural disasters with significant consequences for vulnerable and at-risk communities. Children with communication needs are particularly vulnerable during and following these disasters. High quality, evidence-based interventions are needed to support the health, wellbeing, and communication needs of children, with opportunities for involvement of speech-language pathologists. This commentary paper focusses on SDG 1, SDG 3, SDG 4, SDG 9, SDG 10, SDG 11, SDG 13, and SDG 15. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The discovery of smoke‐induced dynamical anomalies in the stratosphere associated with the 2019/2020 Australian New Year pyrocumulonimbus (pyroCb) super outbreak initiated a new field of study involving aerosol/weather anomalies. This paper documents the dynamical anomalies associated with the February 2009 Australian Black Saturday pyroCb outbreak. Positive potential vorticity anomalies (indicating anticyclonic rotation) with horizontal extent ∼1000 km and vertical thickness ∼2 km are associated with the plume, which we classify as a Smoke With Induced Rotation and Lofting (SWIRL). The SWIRL initially formed east of Australia, but then moved westward, crossing over Australia, and continuing to Africa. The SWIRL lasted for nearly three weeks (13 February–4 March), traveling ∼27,000 km and rising from potential temperatures of ∼410–500 K (altitudes ∼18–21 km). The altitude of the SWIRL is corroborated with coincident satellite‐based profiles of H2O, CO, HCN, O3, and aerosol extinction. A vertical temperature dipole (±3 K) accompanied the PV anomaly, as verified with coincident Global Navigation Satellite System radio occultation temperatures. The SWIRL dissipated as it passed over Africa. Operational ECMWF forecasts with early initialization (13 February) and late initialization (21 February) are examined. In the early case, the forecasted PV anomaly disappeared within 4 days, as expected due to lack of smoke heating in the forecast model. In the late case, while the forecasted PV anomaly was weaker than in the reanalyzes, a remnant anomaly remained out to 10 days. Plain Language Summary: Large bushfires in February 2009 in Australia led to large thunderstorms called pyrocumulonimbus (pyroCb) that injected significant amounts of smoke high into the atmosphere. When this smoke was warmed by absorbing sunlight it became buoyant and started to rise and rotate. This feature has been named a Smoke With Induced Rotation and Lofting (SWIRL) and had previously been observed in large pyroCbs that occurred around New Year's Day 2020 and in Canadian fires that occurred in 2017. The February 2009 SWIRL was a pancake‐like structure 1000 km across and 2 km thick. It lasted for three weeks, traveling over 27,000 km, and rising from 18 to 21 km in altitude. The SWIRL was observed both in weather maps and in satellite observations of gases such as water vapor, carbon monoxide, and ozone. Forecasting the SWIRL is difficult because current numerical weather models either do not consider smoke heating or lack inputs of pyroCb events as they are occurring in real time. Key Points: The February 2009 Australian Black Saturday pyroCbs injected a smoke plume into the stratosphere that induced a mesoscale anticycloneThe anticyclone was 1000 km across and 2 km thick and traveled 27,000 km in three weeks as it rose from 18 to 21 km in altitudeSatellite trace gas and aerosol anomalies coincide with potential vorticity anomalies, confirming smoke‐induced dynamical perturbations [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Media wildfire coverage can shape public knowledge on fire-related issues, and potentially influence management decisions, so understanding the content of its coverage is important. Previous research examining media wildfire coverage has primarily focused on either a single fire or issue, and provides little insight about the range of wildfire-related topics discussed in the media. Aims: We aimed to assess wildfire topics covered in print media between 1986 and 2016 across the USA, Canada and Australia. Methods: Machine learning-based automated content analyses were conducted to identify primary topics within news articles and to map relationships between topics. Key results: News articles related to wildfire were clustered into four topic areas: Fire Response, Management, Environmental Conditions and Property Preparedness. Notable between-country differences emerge: the US media coverage focuses most on firefighting; Canadian coverage, climate change; and Australian coverage, preparedness. Conclusions: Our results reveal that: (1) wildfire media coverage has increased over the past 30 years; (2) coverage is more varied than the common perspective, i.e. media continues to portray fires in a negative light; and (3) topic coverage varies significantly between countries. Implications: These findings can help identify gaps in media coverage, and provide insights into critical topics, or relationships between topics, that may need additional emphasis in conversations about how to better learn to live with fire. This paper presents the results of a large-scale analysis of news media coverage of wildfires across 30 years and three countries: the USA, Canada and Australia. It describes the wildfire-relevant topics that are most common and the interrelationships between them in each of these three contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is the second of two reviewing scientific literature from 100 years of research addressing interactions between the atmosphere and fire behaviour. These papers consider research on the interactions between the fuels burning at any instant and the atmosphere, and the interactions between the atmosphere and those fuels that will eventually burn in a given fire. The first paper reviews the progression from the surface atmospheric properties of temperature, humidity and wind to horizontal and vertical synoptic structures and ends with vertical atmospheric profiles. This second paper addresses plume dynamics and vortices. The review presents several questions and concludes with suggestions for areas of future research. This paper reviews over 100 years of observations and studies of how the atmosphere interacts with wildland fires. It examines fire vortices and plume dynamics, synthesising the literature and identifying knowledge gaps. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 2020 COVID-19 outbreak in New South Wales (NSW), Australia, followed an unprecedented wildfire season that exposed large populations to wildfire smoke. Wildfires release particulate matter (PM), toxic gases and organic and non-organic chemicals that may be associated with increased incidence of COVID-19. This study estimated the association of wildfire smoke exposure with the incidence of COVID-19 in NSW. A Bayesian mixed-effect regression was used to estimate the association of either the average PM 10 level or the proportion of wildfire burned area as proxies of wildfire smoke exposure with COVID-19 incidence in NSW, adjusting for sociodemographic risk factors. The analysis followed an ecological design using the 129 NSW Local Government Areas (LGA) as the ecological units. A random effects model and a model including the LGA spatial distribution (spatial model) were compared. A higher proportional wildfire burned area was associated with higher COVID-19 incidence in both the random effects and spatial models after adjustment for sociodemographic factors (posterior mean = 1.32 (99% credible interval: 1.05-1.67) and 1.31 (99% credible interval: 1.03-1.65), respectively). No evidence of an association between the average PM 10 level and the COVID-19 incidence was found. LGAs in the greater Sydney and Hunter regions had the highest increase in the risk of COVID-19. This study identified wildfire smoke exposures were associated with increased risk of COVID-19 in NSW. Research on individual responses to specific wildfire airborne particles and pollutants needs to be conducted to further identify the causal links between SARS-Cov-2 infection and wildfire smoke. The identification of LGAs with the highest risk of COVID-19 associated with wildfire smoke exposure can be useful for public health prevention and or mitigation strategies., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2021 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

In the latter part of 2019 and into 2020, Australia experienced an unprecedented bushfire season, with major bushfires burning more than 18 million hectares. The scale of the fires served to highlight Australia's heavy reliance on rural volunteer firefighters, bringing into sharp focus the long-term issues that many volunteer bushfire brigades have faced with recruitment and retention. Against the backdrop of long-term government dis-investment into the provision of essential services in rural communities, and with rural volunteer participation at saturation, a deeper understanding of the factors that influence involvement in volunteer bushfire brigades is vital. This review paper examined the factors that have contributed to rural volunteer shortages, particularly in the Australian context. The research revealed that increased time and financial demands on volunteers hampered attraction and retention efforts. The time and financial costs for individuals to volunteer had risen as a result of increased centralised regulation of volunteer provided services. Given the reliance of Australia's broader population, environment and economy on the work of volunteer firefighters, there is a critical need for new empirical research to investigate how organisational cultures, changes in attitudes to different forms of volunteering and changes in employment practices will impact rural volunteer bushfire services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is no literature to guide mental health nursing in bushfire‐affected communities. Using autoethnographic methods, the author reflects on his experience of mental health nursing during the Australian bushfires of 2019–20 and the challenges of identifying existing practice guidance. Applying an existing nursing model and insights from gestalt, he analyses his field notes to identify and describe practices which he found important and useful for working with bushfire‐affected persons and communities. Eight suggestions are provided to assist mental health nurses to practise in an informed way and promote recovery. This paper makes a contribution to a small body of existing mental health nursing research using autoethnographic methods, and it is the first contribution to the mental health nursing literature about working with bushfire‐affected persons and communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The scale and intensity of bushfire activity in Australia is likely to increase as a result of climate change. Effective bushfire management policy measures are therefore essential to minimise the interrelated social, environmental and economic impacts of fire in the landscape. This paper presents a historical review of bushfire management in the South West of Australia (SW): a bushfire prone and biodiverse region. Using a worldview framework to analyse key policy documents and literature, the paper demonstrates that the evolution of complex policy sectors such as bushfire management, is influenced not only by scientific and technical developments but also as a result of changing worldviews. Adapting the Integrative Worldview Framework (IWF), seven worldview categories that dominated particular periods of history in Australia are presented. These worldview categories are then used to examine the evolution of bushfire management practice, policy and institutional arrangements relevant to the SW. The argument presented herein is that a better understanding of worldviews and how they influence complex and contentious policy fields such as bushfire management, is useful for policy analysis, reflexive practice and research. The paper suggests an integrative worldview approach, which enables opportunities for exchanges and constructive conflict between stakeholders and agencies with diverse worldviews, could contribute to creating more sustainable bushfire management. Finally, it is argued that opportunities for Indigenous and Western worldview exchanges in the bushfire management sector, through collaborative knowledge partnerships could assist the sector in both management practice and policy formulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses the moral feat of volunteer fi refighters in Australia during the 2019‒2020 bushfires as an opportunity to discuss the concepts of responsibility, duty, initiative, altruism, sacrifice, social justice and ecological justice within the context of severe and prolonged natural disasters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Australia has the most significant wildfire problem in Oceania, with in excess of 50,000 wildfires per annum on average, and an average of 500,000 km2 of land burnt by wildfires annually across the nation. Each year a number of these wildfires also affect the built environment at the wildland-urban interface (WUI). Each year in Australia, 84 dwellings are destroyed by wildfires on average, albeit historically, only a small number of extreme wildfire events have accounted for the vast majority of the destruction. In response to this WUI fire problem, Australia has developed standards that are cited in the National Construction Code (or NCC), which control construction at the WUI. These standards are constantly under review and evolving as new research is conducted. This paper is a review paper which provides a summary of the building regulatory controls that are in place in Australia to minimise the impact of WUI fires on the built environment. As such, the paper attempts to clarify for a broader international audience how the WUI fire problem is dealt with in one developed country where a significant WUI fire problem exists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Dampier Archipelago (Murujuga) is on Australia's National Heritage List because of its significant rock art and numerous stone structures. When people first started living in this arid landscape of the northwest coast, 50,000 years ago, the shoreline was 160 kilometres further north-and west. The Archipelago was created around 7,000 years ago, with sea-level rise following the termination of the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). Photogrammetry and microphotography (using LiDAR, RPA and Dino-Lite?) are used here to demonstrate how this combination of different scales of imaging can be used to better document the terrestrial Murujuga features record. This paper explores the utility of photogrammetry generated by LiDAR and RPA to locate and reconstruct two types of Aboriginal stone structure (standing stones and house structures) which are prevalent across the Archipelago. These combined techniques were deployed to better visualise and understand site distribution with a view to using the landscape scale methods for the detection of similar features in submerged contexts in the adjacent waters. It has been predicted that this more robust site type would be likely to survive being submerged by sea level rise, and hence this was a site type which we were interested in locating remotely. As well as undertaking systematic terrestrial survey and recording of sample areas across Rosemary Island, topographic LiDAR was flown on two occasions (2017, 2018). These flights were separated by a wildfire which burnt most of the spinifex cover across the island. It highlights the potential - and shortcomings - of remote sensing this type of cultural sites in a naturally rocky and spinifex-covered landscape. It makes recommendations about how to better implement LiDAR to assist in the understanding of the landscape context of these hunter-gatherer stone features. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Home and contents insurance is integral to household and community resilience against disasters. Yet many households are underinsured. While causes for underinsurance have been widely researched, changes to Australian building regulations in the last decade has established a new source of insurance miscalculations. Bushfire Attack Level (BAL) ratings can inflate rebuilding costs by 20% or more, yet BAL ratings remain obfuscated to homeowners and are notoriously confusing to navigate. After the October 2013 bushfires in New South Wales, the Blue Mountains Local Recovery Steering Group found that 'information on the BAL process, the guidelines, the expected costs, the consulting experts and a property's bushfire-prone status is literally all over the place'. This paper aims to provide clarity on the subject, tracing the precise socio-technical means through which disaster risk is perceived and assessed. The paper conceptualises insurance and risk ratings as calculative devices that provide both a technical solution to reduce financial losses and a philosophical tool for risk rationalisation. It then builds on interviews conducted with residents in the Blue Mountains affected by the 2013 bushfires, to ascertain how such calculative devices practically affect communities at risk. The paper concludes by outlining potential solutions to a confusing and costly problem in Australia, highlighting critical public awareness issues surround BAL ratings, which have profound insurance and wellbeing implications for people rebuilding and recovering from bushfire. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ten years ago, 173 people lost their lives and more than 2000 homes were destroyed in the Black Saturday bushfires. The fires of 7 February 2009 led to a royal commission and significant changes to bushfire management throughout Australia. Research played an important role in the royal commission and subsequent changes. This paper reflects on what was learnt from research into human behaviour and community safety undertaken as part of the Bushfire CRC 2009 Victorian Bushfires Research Taskforce. The research involved interviews with over 600 householders and a mail survey of 1314 households affected by the fires. This paper reviews findings from subsequent post-fire research to consider the extent to which there have been changes in findings related to community planning, preparedness and responses to bushfire. The review suggests that many of the issues encountered on Black Saturday--limited awareness of and preparedness for bushfire risk, a tendency for leaving (or evacuating) at the last moment and a commitment to defending, even under the highest levels of fire danger--persist, despite major changes to policy and public messaging. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper raises questions of media coverage of "compounded crises" related to extreme weather disaster, in the context of urgent calls to address the implications of a changing climate. Through media analysis, it examines the ways debate over bushfire protection policy was framed and made culturally meaningful, thereby politically consequential, in the wake of the worst bushfires in modern Australian history, Black Saturday (2009). The fires, in which 173 people died, led to a Royal Commission and fierce debate over the use of prescribed burning to reduce bushfire hazard. Longitudinal analysis of local, state and national mainstream media coverage (2009-2016) reveals blame games that targeted environmentalists and the government, which near-silenced meaningful discussion of the complexity of fire science, impacts of climate change on weather conditions, and calls for adaptation. By exploring the media's constitutive role in crisis response, the paper highlights the legacy and potency of ideological conflict that shapes the media-policy nexus in Australia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the most evident casualties of a natural disaster is the property market. The private and social costs from such events run into millions of dollars. In this paper, we use a unique dataset to examine the impact on residential house prices affected by natural disasters using a hedonic property (HP) values approach. For this purpose, we use data before and after a wildfire and floods from Rockhampton in central Queensland, Australia. The data is unique because one suburb was affected by wildfires and another was affected by floods. For the analysis, three suburbs namely Frenchville, Park Avenue and Norman Gardens are used. Frenchville was significantly affected by wildfires in the latter part of 2009 and to a lesser extent in 2012, while Park Avenue was affected by floods at the end of 2010, January 2011-2013. Norman Gardens, which was relatively unaffected, is used as a control site. This enables us to examine the before and after effects on property values in the three suburbs. The results confirm that soon after a natural disaster property prices in affected areas decrease even though the large majority of individual houses remain unaffected. Furthermore, the results indicate that the largely unaffected suburb may gain immediately after a natural disaster but this gain may disappear if natural disasters continue to occur in the area/region due to the stigma created. The results have several important policy decision and welfare implications which are briefly discussed in the paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Major natural disasters are events where day-to-day governance activities are disrupted and a large range of different actors - governmental and non-governmental - are required to (re) act. Given the inherently chaotic nature of disaster events, and the diverse groups responding to their attendant impacts, clarity about how authority and responsibility are allocated across key disaster management actors is essential. This raises numerous pertinent questions: Are there areas of shared competence between different disaster management actors? Is there a need for them to act in common? Is credible cooperation feasible? Can responsibilities be allocated in a clear and effective manner? In this paper, drawing upon the subsidiarity principle, we provide a review of the academic literature using the role of different actors in disaster management in Australia as the case. The objective of the paper is to synthesise what is known and to, thereby, provoke greater conversation and research of responsibilities during disaster events in Australia and beyond. The ultimate contribution is to help understand how the roles of different disaster management actors can be better reconciled to ensure more effective and efficient outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Curse of Conservation: Empirical Evidence Demonstrating That Changes in Land-Use Legislation Drove Catastrophic Bushfires in Southeast Australia. "Victorian Environment Assessment Council Digital Archive" Victorian Environment Assessment Council, The Digital Archive Contains Published Reports and Maps of the Land Conservation Council from 1971 to 1997Available online: https://www.veac.vic.gov.au/digital-archive/investigations(accessed on 22 June 2023) 3 McPhee G. The Land Conservation Council, Conservation or Exploitation? In 1970, the Victorian state government in Australia established the Land Conservation Council (LCC) to study the state's publicly-owned land and make recommendations for its use [[1]]. [Extracted from the article]

Globally, wildfires are increasing in frequency and severity, exposing populations to toxic trace elements stored within forests. Trace element and Pb isotope compositions in aerosols (n = 87) from four major wildfires near Sydney, Australia (1994-2004) were evaluated (Mood's median test) to determine any significant differences in concentration before, during or after wildfires. The US EPA's positive matrix factorization (PMF) model was used to distinguish a wildfire-related particulate source factor. Atmospheric concentrations of Cd and Mn were approximately 2.5 times higher during fire periods. PMF modelling distinguished a soil factor (Ca, Si, Ti and Zn) and an anthropogenically-sourced factor (Cd, Pb). The Cd, Pb anthropogenic factor was present at twice the concentration during wildfire periods (compared to before or after). Lead isotopic analyses of aerosols revealed that former leaded gasoline depositions were subject to remobilization during post-2000 wildfire periods. Trace element increases during wildfires are unlikely to exceed health-based criteria., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Crown Copyright © 2020. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

From September 2019 to February 2020 fires destroyed dwellings, towns and killed farm animals and wildlife in much of eastern Australia. While the threat and experiences of fire differed, smoke became a quotidian experience for millions of people not in direct danger from flames. The disjuncture between the Australian bushfire summer existing within much longer histories of air, respiration and smoke in cities and the experiences of smoke being new to many people highlights important issues relating to nomenclature, boundaries and urban imaginaries. Developing a more-than-urban political ecology of smoke, this paper concludes that understanding smoke as part of atmospheres within which humans live and breathe is necessary to support the integrated management of land, water, air and the living entities in and beyond a particular area or country. A more-than-urban political ecology of smoke will assist people to view themselves and their welfare as being connected with what happens on spaces that are physically distant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Black Summer Fires of 2019/2020 remind us not only that Australia is arguably the most bushfire prone area in the world but also that we have much to learn in terms of how we learn from such events. Bushfires interact with emergency management systems in a manner that is complex and unpredictable which all too often results in damages and losses, so significant that governments establish public inquiries to forensically examine what happened and why afterwards. Too often, such processes have resulted in emergency management practitioners (EMP) being blamed, not to mention scapegoated and even vilified for damages and losses from major bushfire events. With recent bushfire events (as well as other crises surrounding Covid‐19) highlighting the excruciating demands placed on EMP and an escalating scepticism about whether public inquiries improve preparation for future bushfires, this paper explores the question: what can we learn about public inquiries based on the experiences of EMP? Learning to learn from bushfire through insights from emergency management practitioners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: In the aftermath of fires which swept through a regional community in 2013, community leaders were thrust, unprepared, into the disaster recovery arena. The objective of this research was to investigate the subsequent lived experience of these community leaders and, based on this information, develop a guide to meet the challenges for their personal preparation in the context of disaster. Design: Ethical approval for the overarching Community Connections project was provided by Charles Sturt University (H2014073). The project design was informed by an interpretivist paradigm and the methodology embraced participatory action research and thus engaged community members and leaders as research partners. This paper reports on the community leader component of the overarching project. Setting: Blue Mountains, New South Wales, Australia. Participants: There were 7 interview participants in both 2014 and 2018; 5 participated in both years. Participants were either managers of a local non‐government organisation, peak body, school, emergency service or large relief organisation with a local presence. Main outcome measure: The development of a guide for the personal preparation of community leaders. Results: The stress of community leaders escalated after the disaster, resulting in a debilitating blurring of professional and personal boundaries, heightened demand on personal knowledge, networking relationships and communication strategies. Conclusion: The guide is practical and far reaching; the researchers could not locate anything similar to guide community leaders in their personal planning and preparation for work in disaster recovery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social acceptability of environmental management actions, such as prescribed burning used to reduce wildfire risk, is critical to achieving positive outcomes. However, environmental managers often need to implement strategies over a long time period, and sustaining long-term community support can be challenging. Public attention to environmental issues is argued to vary over time, with acceptability of management interventions theorized to decrease with time since experiencing an environmental problem. However, it is unknown whether a person needs to personally experience the problem to maintain support, or if hearing about it in the media is sufficient. In this paper we explore whether acceptability of prescribed burning used to reduce wildfire risk declines with length of time since personally experiencing a wildfire. In a sample of 4390 Australians, acceptability of prescribed burning was not predicted by length of time since personally experiencing a wildfire, or perceptions of wildfire risk. Significant predictors included perceptions of local fuel loads, and of positive and negative impacts of prescribed burning, suggesting addressing these issues may be more effective in maintaining long-term support for wildfire management policies than investing in increasing attention to wildfire risk. This suggests environmental managers can design communication strategies to maintain support for environmental actions even in the absence of an individual personally experiencing the problem the action is designed to address.

The article discusses that for city-dwelling Australians, COVID-19 sent the population into a toilet paper stockpiling hysteria, and bushfires were already a dwindling memory. It mentions that people living in rural communities are more likely than their city-dwelling cousins to experience multiple physical and mental health problems; and also mentions that self-management interventions are highly effective at preventing readmission to crisis care.