Australian inferno previews fire-prone future

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CLIMATE change is ramping up fire risk around the world. In Australia, home to some of the most fire-prone regions on Earth, the bush fires raging now could be a taster of what's to come.

Parts of the world where the fire risk is rising can learn from Australia's experience, says John Handmer, director of the Centre for Risk and Community at RMIT University in Melbourne. A good place to start would be "uninhabitable zones" - places where the fire risk is so high no homes should be built.

Such zones became a reality after "black Saturday" in 2009, when fires killed 173 people and destroyed over 2000 homes in the state of Victoria alone. A royal commission recommended a "retreat and resettlement" strategy for areas of "unacceptable fire risk". Under a voluntary buy-back scheme, the state bought more than 100 properties destroyed in the fires, and new buildings in high-risk areas now require a special permit.

Handmer says Australia should be mapped based on fire risk, and the government should buy up the spots that are too dangerous for houses. North-facing ridges or gullies, where we know fires tend to funnel, should be considered out of bounds for housing development.

Many of these areas have been developed in the absence of such policies, he warns. "They're setting us up for the catastrophes of the future."

There is little doubt that climate change is already making fires more likely in Australia, says Andy Pitman of the University of New South Wales in Sydney. Australians were warned that they faced the highest ever risk this year. A couple of wet years led to extra growth in forests and grasslands, then a record heatwave dried everything out, turning it into a tinderbox.

The heatwave smashed records and Australia's Bureau of Meteorology has called it "consistent" with climate change. The average temperature across the country reached 40.33 ?C last week, beating a 1976 record of 40.17 ?C. In 1973 the average maximum temperature sat above 39 ?C for four days. Last week, it stayed that way for seven days. "We are absolutely annihilating records," says Pitman.

Such records are made more likely by rising greenhouse gas emissions (see graph). Additional factors that help fuel fires will also worsen as the climate continues to warm, says Pitman. Elevated carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will fertilise plants during moist periods, creating more fuel. Increased variability means wetter wet periods will boost plant growth, and be followed by drier dry spells - a perfect storm of conditions for fires to break out. So fires are more likely, and likely to be bigger, says Pitman.

Predictions are sobering. A 2011 study of the south-east of the country used climate models to predict changes in the number of days with "very high" or "extreme" fire risk. It forecast an increase of 70 per cent by 2050. That would leave less time for safe controlled burning - a method used to reduce the amount of fuel available for bush fires - potentially making fires more severe.

Another study, led by Pitman, found the national fire risk in January would increase by 25 per cent by 2050. By the end of the century it could double in some areas, including the New South Wales and Queenland coastlines, (Climatic Change, doi.org/b46h7m). These studies don't include detailed models of how vegetation will change and affect fires, but they are the best we have at such small scales, notes Ross Bradstock, director of the Centre for Environmental Risk Management of Bushfires at the University of Wollongong in New South Wales. "It's getting a bit scary to be perfectly honest," says Pitman.

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