The bushfires are a national catastrophe for the city and country. How are we going to live like this?

The fire situation in eastern Australia continues to rapidly escalate.

‘The magnitude of these fires alone, apart from their
human and environmental consequences, simply
shows us that we now confront a new, more flammable world’.

At this stage we cannot predict when this will come to an end, but with losses of lives and property mounting on the south coast of NSW, eastern Victoria, South Australia, southwestern WA and Tasmania, we now have a nationally significant catastrophe that affects city and country alike.

The magnitude of these fires alone (about 5 million hectares and rapidly rising), apart from their human and environmental consequences, simply shows us that we now confront a new, more flammable world: a coupling of people, ecosystems and fire that is now irrevocably transformed.

As a society we should admit that our current policy, operational, knowledge-gathering and research capacity is inadequate to deal with such a new, fiery world.

Read the opinion piece from The Guardian by Ross Bradstock and David Bowman - “The bushfires are a national catastrophe for the city and country. How are we going to live like this?”