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| 2020 wildfire season | |
|---|---|
| Statistics | |
| Date(s) | January–December 2020 |
| Season | |
← 2019 2021 → | |
The 2020 wildfire season involves wildfires on multiple continents.
Below is a partial list of articles on wildfires from around the world in the year 2020.
A firebreak or double track is a gap in vegetation or other combustible material that acts as a barrier to slow or stop the progress of a bushfire or wildfire. A firebreak may occur naturally where there is a lack of vegetation or "fuel", such as a river, lake or canyon. Firebreaks may also be man-made, and many of these also serve as roads, such as a logging road, four-wheel drive trail, secondary road, or a highway.
The Linton Bushfire was a wildfire that burned through private land and state forests near the township of Linton, Victoria, Australia on 2 December 1998. Firefighters from the Victorian state government's Department of Natural Resources and Environment and the Country Fire Authority (CFA) were deployed to put out the fire. At approximately 8.45pm, two firefighting appliances and their crews were entrapped and engulfed in fire following an unexpected wind change. The bushfire covered a maximum land of 660 hectares of private and public land.
Binna Burra is a parcel of private land and mountain lodge within the locality of Binna Burra and surrounded by Lamington National Park in Queensland, Australia. It is also a locality in the Scenic Rim Region. The lodge lies in the north-eastern corner of the Lamington Plateau in the McPherson Range, 75 kilometres (47 mi) south of Brisbane in the scenic rim hinterland of the Gold Coast. Binna Burra lies within the catchment of the upper Coomera River.
A fire trail is a rural road built specifically for the purpose of access for "fire management purposes" including building containment lines and backburning operations.
Bushfires in Australia are a widespread and regular occurrence that have contributed significantly to shaping the nature of the continent over millions of years. Eastern Australia is one of the most fire-prone regions of the world, and its predominant eucalyptus forests have evolved to thrive on the phenomenon of bushfire. However, the fires can cause significant property damage and loss of both human and animal life. Bushfires have killed approximately 800 people in Australia since 1851, and billions of animals.
The 2018 wildfire season involves wildfires on multiple continents. An extremely rare event occurred when wildfires broke out north of the Arctic Circle in Scandinavia, with one burning on the Russia–Finland border near the Barents Sea on July 20. By the end of the calendar year, the fires in British Columbia had burned more area than in any prior recorded year; and California experienced the single largest fire on record, and a fire destroyed more structures than in any other in modern history. Similarly, the UK saw the most wildfires ever recorded in a single year, at 76, while Greece saw the deadliest wildfires in its history, with 102 casualties.
The bushfires were predicted to be "fairly bleak" in parts of Australia, particularly in the east, by the Bushfire and Natural Hazards Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) chief executive, Richard Thornton, in September 2018. Large bushfires had already burned through southern New South Wales during winter. The outlook for spring was of a higher likelihood of fires with a twice the normal chance of an El Nino for summer. Many parts of eastern Australia including Queensland, New South Wales and Gippsland, in Victoria, were already in drought. Above normal fire was also predicted for large parts of Southern Australia and Eastern Australia by the Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC. The forecast noted that Queensland had recorded the ninth driest and fourth hottest period on record from April to November. New South Wales recorded the fourth hottest period and eighth driest on record, while Victoria experiences the 13th driest and seventh hottest period on record. Authorities in New South Wales brought forward the start of the bushfire season for much of the state from October 2018 to the beginning of August 2018.
The 2019 wildfire season involves wildfires on multiple continents.
The 2019–20 Australian bushfire season or Black Summer was a period of bushfires in many parts of Australia, which, due to its unusual intensity, size, duration, and uncontrollable dimension, was considered a megafire. Exceptionally dry conditions, a lack of soil moisture, and early fires in Central Queensland led to an early start to the bushfire season, beginning in June 2019. Hundreds of fires burnt, mainly in the southeast of the country, until May 2020. The most severe fires peaked from December 2019 to January 2020.
A megafire is an exceptional fire that devastates a large area. They are characterised by their intensity, size, duration and uncontrollable scale. There is no precise scientific definition.
The 1974–75 Australian bushfire season is a series of bushfires, also known around the world as wildfires, that burned across Australia. Fires that summer burned up an estimated 117 million hectares. Approximately 15% of Australia's land mass suffered "extensive fire damage" including parts of New South Wales, the Northern Territory, Queensland, South Australia and Western Australia.
The Royal Commission into National Natural Disaster Arrangements, also referred to as the Bushfires Royal Commission, was a royal commission established in 2020 by the Australian government to inquire into and report upon natural disaster management coordination as it related to the 2019–20 Australian bushfire season. The Commission was charged with the responsibility of examining the coordination, preparedness for, response to and recovery from disasters, as well as improving resilience and adapting to changing climatic conditions and mitigating the impact of natural disasters.
Following the devastating 2019–20 bushfires in Australia, authorities were urged to prepare early for the 2020–21 Australian bushfire season. The bushfire outlook for July to September 2020 was predicting a normal fire potential in Queensland with a good grass growth in many areas giving an increased risk of grass fires, an above normal season in the Kimberley region of Western Australia as a result of good rains from tropical cyclones, a normal but earlier season in the Northern Territory, an above normal season on the south coast of New South Wales and normal seasons elsewhere.
The 2016 wildfire season involved wildfires in multiple continents.
The 2021 wildfire season involves wildfires on multiple continents. Even at halfway through the calendar year, wildfire seasons were larger than in previous history, with increased extreme weather caused by climate change strengthening the intensity and scale of fires.
The 2022 wildfire season involves wildfires on multiple continents.
Burning is a 2021 Australian documentary film by Eva Orner and Jonathan Schaerf, which documents the massive fires of the 2019–20 Australian bushfire season.