2020 by the Young Diplomats Society

S c o r c h e d E a r t h - A n I n t e n s e Ye a r
o f I n t e r n a t i o n a l F i r e s
KATE BACKSHALL
In the shadow of the pandemic, you could be forgiven for missing the scale of this year’s global fire crisis.
2020 has sadly broken global fire records that should never have been broken. With 2019 already a recordbreaking
year for global fire outbreaks, it is worrying that 2020 is beating it by a further 13 per cent.
Fire is a natural seasonal occurrence in many parts of the world, however, the scale of these events have been
increasing for decades and the length of fire-seasons has been extending over the past 40 years. A
concerning characteristic of the world’s fire events, in addition to their immediate threat to lives, homes and
landscapes, is that their CO2 output is enormous. Fire has always made up a part of our planet's natural
carbon cycles but, due to human-induced climate change, they are increasing in regularity and severity. These
increasingly intense fire seasons risk contributing to a feedback loop that exacerbates CO2 levels, which inturn
further aggravates the fire crisis. The planet has physically begun to see the impacts of climate change
with a 0.9-degree rise in temperatures already changing landscapes to be more prone to fire.
BLAZES IN AUSTRALIA AND THE US
Globally, the ferocity of Australia’s bushfires sparked further conversations about the impacts that climate
change is having on extreme weather events across the world. Shortly after, the US’ fire season reminded the
world that this was not simply a freak occurrence, but a worrying trend.
Australia’s ‘Black Summer’ fires took nearly nine months from when they first began, unseasonably early in
June, to be brought under control in March. In that time, the fires managed to ravage an area roughly the size of
the United Kingdom and the smoke plume they generated physically impacted 57 per cent of the Australian
adult population and circled the earth for over three months. The smoke and ash also contributed to the
creation of new fires because as it cooled in the atmosphere they created fire-induced thunderstorms, which
generated new blazes. Sadly, 34 Australians lost their lives, thousands of homes were destroyed and a revised
figure estimates nearly 3-billion animals were impacted by the fires (either killed or displaced). This disaster has
been considered one of the worst wildlife catastrophes in modern history. The interconnected state of the
world’s weather, through phenomena like the Indian Ocean Dipole - which moves heat across the ocean -
means that severe weather events do not operate in a vacuum. For example, while this phenomenon
exacerbated the dry conditions in Australia, which contributed to such a harsh fire season, it simultaneously
caused the worst flooding in Africa in two decades .
In addition, the fires in the US began in July with some still burning as of late November 2020, impacting 13
states across the country. The conditions have mimicked the Australian fires, with many states facing extreme
drought and dry winds off the back of some of the hottest summers on record. These fires are the latest in an
increasing trend of fire intensity, with six of California’s 20 largest fires since reliable record-keeping began
happening this year. The pandemic has further complicated the situation by putting pressure on resources and
ideological disputes about fire management.