What We Should Know About the Australia Fires, And What We Can Do

The Australia fires have burned 26 million acres of land – a land area equivalent to the size of Iceland – as of 10 Jan 2020. Scientists fear that billions of animals have died in the fire so far. It’s a dire scenario, and the photographs are ominous and apocalyptic.

Initially, when I thought about the consequences of the fire, I thought about houses destroyed, people displaced, animals killed and plants burnt. But houses can be rebuilt, trees will grow back, the animal populations can recover, and everything will be back in order with time. Right?

I was wrong. The houses will be rebuilt, that’s right, but the scale of this fire did more ecological damage than I understood and can begin to understand. Here’s what I gathered so far from reading about the situation. And it’s with a heavy heart that I write this post.

Implications of the Australia fire

Ecological disaster

We’re looking at the destruction of entire habitats and possible obliteration of remaining populations of endangered animals – like the potoroo, a type of rat kangaroo that keeps the forest soil healthy.

Entire ecosystems have been and are being destroyed in the Australia fires. Important pollinators like the blossom bats and flying foxes are dying in huge numbers. Even animals that live in the water, like the platypus and fishes, aren’t spared.

Like the Amazon, rainforests in Queensland, Australia that were supposed to be too wet to burn, burnt too. Ecologists fear that these rainforests wouldn’t grow back. When forests burn in semi-arid areas like Australia, they sometimes turn into brush or grassland.

Eventually, I believe that nature will prevail. But at this rate of destruction and so many pieces of the building block of the ecosystem destroyed, it will take many years for the natural environment to return to how it was. Sadly, some species of animals may never recover from the fire.

Water pollution and algal bloom

As terrible as the situation already is, Australians’ problems likely won’t end even with the end of the fire season. As it is, some towns are without drinking water after fires burnt down water treatment facilities and contaminated water supplies with ashes.

This will become an ongoing problem as more ashes enter the water sources. Apart from water pollution, scientists also fear that ashes will worsen algal blooms, which was already a problem as a result of agricultural run-offs.

With algal blooms, the algae in the water can use up all the oxygen in rivers and streams and kill off aquatic life. In addition, the ashes and algae may slow water treatment down and affect water supplies to the people.

To make things worse, the fire season isn’t even over yet. It’s an extremely worrying situation. Can you imagine having to breathe in that smoke, tolerate that heat and be water-insecure? It hurts to even think about that.

Turning carbon sink to source, and a terrible feedback loop

The Australian bushland is no stranger to fire. However, the dryer and hotter weather brought on by climate change has caused the vegetation to become dryer and more susceptible to fire than ever.

“One of the key drivers of fire intensity, fire spread rates and fire area is temperature. And in Australia we’ve just experienced record high temperatures.” Mark Howden, director of the Climate Change Institute, Australian National University.

From this graph, we can see that the temperature has been climbing gradually. In fact, 2019 was Australia’s hottest and driest year on record.

The fire isn’t just a consequence of climate change, it’s also bad news for our climate crisis. Millions of acres of carbon sinks have turned into carbon sources as the fire burned bushland, grassland, and forests.

In just 3 months, the fires have generated 350 million tonnes of carbon dioxide, which is approximately 66% of the country’s annual emissions from manmade sources.

It’ll take years for the vegetation to regenerate and start removing carbon dioxide from the air again. This means the surplus of carbon dioxide released is going to contribute to global warming, and the higher temperature will fuel future fires. It’s a terrible feedback loop.

For more about the carbon cycle, visit this link.

As the climate crisis deepens, there’ll be more catastrophes like that, not only for Australia but for other parts of the world too.

How to help

For those of us in the rest of the world, there are two ways we can help, and both are important.

Donate

To help fellow humans affected by the fire:

Australian Red Cross
The Salvation Army Australia
St Vincent de Paul Society

To help the poor animals displaced or injured in the fire:

RSPCA New South Wales
WIRES NSW: Wildlife Information, Rescue and Education Service Inc.
World Wildlife Fund: Adopt a Koala or plant a tree for them

Fight climate change

We’re all connected. The carbon footprint we leave in our daily lives affects everyone in every corner of the world. As difficult as it is to admit, our collective carbon emission fuelled climate change and contributed to the severity of the Australia fires.

The choices we make every day impact on the environment. Make them good choices:

• Vote for politicians who believe in climate change and have constructive plans to fight the climate crisis
• Support renewable energy
• Support causes that protect rainforests and oceans – they’re our precious carbon sinks
• As best as you can, support companies that use sustainably sourced palm oil. Palm oil is a huge cause of deforestation
• Cut down beef consumption
• Use lesser paper products, and for the products you use, make sure they’re FSC-certified
• Take public transportation and cut down flying frequency
• Keep talking about the climate crisis

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If there’s one thing to take away from the Australia fire, it’s this – this is the beginning of what our future will look like.

Unfortunately, this won’t be the last fire season in Australia. This year, there’ll continue to be fires in the Arctic region, the Congo Basin, the Amazon, California, Indonesia, and other places.

Some of them will be natural, others manmade, but there’ll be one similarity – that they’ll all burn harder and faster because our earth has been heating up.

So, even if we’re not anywhere near Australia, know that we’re in this together and we have a part to play. Please spread the message, make #climateaction a priority.