INTERNATIONAL WILDFIRES (21ST CENTURY)

2002

ECOCIDE
noun
destruction of the natural environment,
especially when deliberate.

INTERNATIONAL WILDFIRES

(Largest Fires of the 21st Century)

Australian Bushfire
Season (2002-03)

(Eastern Victorian Alpine Fires, Satellite)

#1

LARGEST FIRE OF THE 21ST CENTURY

The Official Story

2002–03 AUSTRALIAN BUSHFIRE SEASON
(The Largest Fire of the 21st Century)

A particularly extensive bushfire season in Australia, ran predominantly from December 2002 to March 2003 and involved over 3,000 separate fires in Victoria alone. The 2003 Canberra bushfires were also particularly severe.

The developing drought in Australia and well below-average rainfall through winter and spring of 2002 established conditions conducive to above-average bushfire potential. During the 2002–03 season, there were 5,999 bushfires attended by the relevant agency Australia-wide and 7 fatalities, 4 of those from the January Canberra fires.Perhaps the most well known fire of the season was the Eastern

Victorian alpine bushfires that burnt in north-eastern Victoria, the Victorian Alps and Gippsland. This fire was ignited in several locations by multiple lightning strikes and burnt 1.12 million hectares of land over the course of 2 months. Over 15,000 personnel were directly engaged with this fire complex.

Overview

While hundreds or thousands of individual fires burn in any given bushfire season, areas of large fires that join and split are referred to as ‘fire complexes’. The major fire complexes included:

Big Desert Fire (17–25 December)

Yambulla Fire (6–11 January)

Eastern Victorian alpine bushfires (8 January – 7 March)

Canberra bushfires (8 January – 14 February)

According to the ABS, in their 1301.0 – Year Book Australia, 2004, between 664 and 646 houses were destroyed and 13427 to 14427 stock lost in the 2002-03 bushfire season.

Statistics

Victoria

General:

Over 3,000 fires burned from December to March.

Firefighters worked on the ground for over 70 days.

Over 1.12 million hectares were affected in Victoria’s North East and Gippsland.

Over 181,400 hectares were affected in the Big Desert.

A total of 1.3 million hectares burnt throughout the season.

No people died as a direct result of these fires.

Over 35 agencies were involved in fighting the fires and support roles, as well as interstate, New Zealand and US firefighters.

The total personnel directly engaged on the North East and Gippsland fires was 15,725. A peak of over 3,760 personnel were involved at any one time. 8,595 were volunteers, more than half.

8,500 people attended over 250 community briefings.

Structures:

41 houses were lost

1,000 houses were protected within the perimeter of the fires

7,000 houses were at risk within 5 km from the fire perimeter

12,000 houses were at risk within 10 km of the fire perimeter

2003 Eastern Victorian Alpine Bushfires

The Eastern Victorian alpine bushfires were a series of bushfires in 2003 that burnt in the Alpine National Park and Mount Buffalo National Park in north-eastern Victoria, Australia. The bushfire started with eighty-seven fires that were started by lightning in the north east of Victoria on 8 January 2003. Eight of these fires were unable to be contained and joined to form the largest fire in Victoria since the 1939 “Black Friday” bushfires.

The main fire burnt over 1,300,000 hectares (3,200,000 acres) over 59 days before it was contained on 7 March 2003. 41 homes and 213 other structures were destroyed, along with tree bridges, and 10,000 livestock were killed. Thousands of kilometres of fencing was also destroyed. This was the longest running fire until the 2006-07 Great Divide fires.

In early February, at the peak of the fires, around 3,760 people were involved in the fire effort, excluding local Country Fire Authority brigades. This figure includes 160 Australian Defence Force staff, over 300 interstate firefighters, 33 alpine firefighting specialists from New Zealand and 35 personnel from the United States. In total, 15,725 personnel were directly engaged on fighting these bushfires.

The areas affected included, Mount Buffalo, Mount Bogong, Mount Feathertop, Bright, Dinner Plain, Benambra, Omeo, Cobungra, Shannonvale, Bundara, Anglers Rest, Sunnyside, Glen Wills, and Dargo.

Source: Wikipedia

2002–03 Australian Bushfire Season Statistics

Dates(s):	Winter 2002 – Spring 2003
Burned Area:	540,000 square kilometres (21,241,000 ha)
Cost:	$350+ million AUD
Cause:	Various, predominantly lightning
Buildings Destroyed:	646+ houses, 213 other structures, 3 bridges
Deaths:	7 humans (and ~15,000 livestock)
Non-fatal injuries:	490