As many as 6.9 million Australians who live in urban fringes of capital cities could be at risk of fires similar to those experienced in Los Angeles last January, a new report warns.

Released last week before the outbreak of the Victorian fires, the report from the Climate Council in conjunction with Emergency Leaders for Climate Action has warned that expanding urban populations and growing climate impacts mean that fires are becoming a growing risk for those who live in Australia’s cities.

The report comes as Victoria is being impacted by several major bushfires after last week’s heatwave.

It also follows last January’s Los Angeles fires, in which 31 people were killed and more than 16,000 structures were destroyed.

The LA fires hit a major city – something which is yet to be seen in Australia (the fire also occurred in winter, well outside the traditional fire season in Southern California).

According to the report, the LA fires show that even large and well-developed cities are no longer immune to ferocious fires.

It says that the question of similar fires impacting a major city in Australia is a case of ‘when, not if.”

The report makes five observations.

These include that:

• The threat of major fires is being exacerbated by effects of climate change. These include longer and more extreme heatwaves, longer and deeper droughts and more intense weather conditions which can increase the chance of fires being started by lightning strikes. In fact, the report says that almost half (43 percent) of all bushfires that were recorded between 1980 and 2023 occurred over the ten years to 2023. In the case of LA, the city experienced a ‘whiplash’ which occurred as two very wet years that resulted in strong vegetation growth were followed by very dry conditions which are ideal for fire spread.
• The outskirts of several major Australian cities (Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra, Adelaide and Perth) share some of the characteristics which made the LA fires so destructive. These include deteriorating fire weather, periods of extreme dryness, possibility of strong wind gusts and fire started by lighting strikes, steep slopes which accelerate fires and large tracts of bushland which are adjacent to homes.
• Also similar to LA, Australia is experiencing a significant expansion in outer urban population. Over the 23 years from 2001 until 20224, the residential population in urban fringe areas of the seven largest capitals increased by 66 percent to go from 4.183 million to 6.922 million.
• Australian fire conditions are being ‘turbo-charged’, meaning that fires are becoming more frequent, costlier, more intense and less predictable. Over the 40 years from 1979 until 2019, fire seasons across Australia expanded by almost one month. Southern Australia is experiencing long-term declines in cool-season rainfall at the same time as spring and summer become hotter and drier – a notion which setting the stage for earlier, more intense and widespread fire. As fire behaviour at night becomes more extreme, firefighters are less able to use milder nighttime conditions to attack fires and undertake backburning to bring large fires under control.
• Finally, at an extreme global warming scenario of three degrees above pre-industrial temperatures, there will be many more fires such as the Black Saturday fires of 2009 and the Black Summer bushfires of 2019/20 that are beyond the limits of even well-prepared fire services to control. In the case of Los Angele, the city’s fire service was overwhelmed despite being among the best in the world.

In response, the report makes three recommendations.

These include greater efforts to reduce Australia’s carbon emissions, further investment in disaster prevention and community resilience and increasing emergency service and land management capacity within urban fringes and major regional areas.

Greg Mulluns, former NSW Fire Commissioner and founder of ELCA, said that the report serves as a wake-up-call for Australians who live in capital cities.

“Our analysis shows that Australian cities increasingly face the potential for catastrophic fires like the ones in LA earlier this year,” Mullens said.

“Those fires burned in winter driven by hurricane-strength winds.

“Climate pollution is now worsening fire weather conditions to the point that fires can sometimes be beyond the limits of modern firefighting and prevention capabilities.

“If you live in suburbia and think bushfires don’t concern you, think again. Nearly every Australian capital city has a dangerous mix of preconditions for a catastrophic fire like LA: the possibility of extreme dry periods; severe winds; steep slopes; bushland near homes; and a history of destructive fires.”

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