Millions of people living on the sprawling peripheries of Australia’s major cities face increasing risk of urban bushfires similar to the deadly fires in Los Angeles last year.
Suburbs on the outskirts of the centres, including Sydney, Melbourne and Perth, are now home to at least 6.9 million people and, like affected regions in Los Angeleshave residential areas where houses abut highly flammable grassland, according to a report released Tuesday by the Climate Council think tank and a group of former Australian fire chiefs.
“Almost all Australian capital cities have a dangerous combination of preconditions for a catastrophic fire like the one in Los Angeles: the possibility of extreme dry periods, severe winds, steep slopes, bushland close to homes and a history of destructive fires,” said Greg Mullins, a former New South Wales fire commissioner who has also worked with authorities in the US.
The January 2025 fires in Los Angeles County killed 31 people and rank as the world’s costliest wildfires, with insured losses estimated at $40 billion, according to Swiss Re. The factors that contributed to the devastation – erratic weather fueled by the impacts of climate change and the expansion of new housing near the urban fringe – are also present across Australia, according to the Climate Council report.
According to the report, Australian authorities must act more quickly to phase out polluting fossil fuels and increase investment in disaster preparedness and resilience. The country has a long history of deadly wildfires, and the Black Summer fires of 2019-2020 killed 33 people and burned 24 million hectares, 59 million acres.
“It is essential that we address the cause of more extreme weather by dramatically reducing climate pollution, while allocating adequate resources to fire and land management agencies, and preparing suburban communities for increasing risks,” said Mullins, who is also founder of the group Emergency Leaders for Climate Action.
