New research published in early 2024 is showing more about the real damage caused by the huge wildfires that happened in Australia at the end of 2019 and the beginning of 2020.
Vivienne Reiner, who led one of the studies, says the findings show what could happen in the future in Australia and other places vulnerable to climate-change disasters.
On Jan. 31, Reiner and her team shared their study’s results. They used a method called input-output study to figure out how the fires affected the economy.
They discovered that the fires likely cost the tourism industry in Australia about A$2.8 billion ($1.8 billion). That’s more money than the entire economy of Guinea-Bissau, a country in West Africa with over 2 million people.
The input-output study was the first time researchers looked at how the fires affected the entire supply chain in Australia. They found that the damage to tourism was about A$2.8 billion, which was 61% more than what was originally thought.
This cost to tourism was higher than what Australia plans to spend over five years to help low-income households with rent, according to the country’s budget.
Vivienne Reiner, who led the study, says the effects of the fires could last for many years. The forestry sector was hit hard, and it will take a long time for it to recover because trees need about 25 years to grow before they can be used. The fires also had a devastating impact on the environment and animals.
The researchers also found that over 7,000 jobs were lost because of canceled bookings.
Excess deaths
The first fires in Australia’s 2019-20 bushfire season started in September 2019, but the worst happened from December to the New Year.
Reiner’s research showed how much damage the fires caused. Another study in the journal Heliyon found that air pollution in Australia led to one person dying every five days over the past 20 years. Sydney and Melbourne had the most deaths from air pollution, followed by Brisbane and Perth.
Former prime minister Scott Morrison said in February 2020 that the fires killed 33 people, including nine firefighters. Over 3,000 homes were destroyed.
People who lived through the fires have reported lasting mental health issues. Doctors think there could be long-term health problems for Australians who were exposed to the smoke.
The fires destroyed many nature reserves, including over 80% of the Blue Mountains, a UNESCO World Heritage Site in New South Wales.
In the 2019-20 fires, about 24 million hectares (59 million acres) of land burned, which is as big as the U.K. The fires also killed or displaced up to 1.5 billion animals, according to a study from 2021.
A new study in the April 2024 edition of Global Ecology and Conservation found that 15% of all the known places where gray-headed flying foxes roost may have been affected by the fires. This means previous estimates of how the fires affected these bats might have been too low.
The gray-headed flying fox, Australia’s largest bat found in the east, is listed as vulnerable on the IUCN Red List.
Researchers say they don’t know how many flying-foxes died in the fires, but the fires affected many of their roosts, which is a big problem for this vulnerable species.
Before the recent research on Australia’s 2019-20 bushfires, scientists had already shown that these fires probably had huge effects worldwide.
A study in 2023 found that smoke from the Australian bushfires traveled all around the world in about a month. It made clouds brighter and caused cooling over the Pacific Ocean.
This cooling effect lasted nearly three years and caused a La Niña climate pattern. This pattern is usually only caused by big volcanic eruptions.
John Fasullo from the National Center for Atmospheric Research said they were surprised because this is the first study to show wildfires triggering a La Niña event.
