Unpredictable weather patterns and unusually warm winter temperatures have increased the threat of wildfires, a leading firefighter has warned.
Greg Mullins, a former New South Wales Fire and Rescue Commissioner who served between 2003 and 2017, told Daily Mail Australia that even brief periods of dry heat could dehydrate the land enough to set large areas of the country ablaze.
Mullins said a heatwave in northern Australia had already sparked wildfires, while strong winds have hit the southeast and if repeated during the fire season could fuel very dangerous blazes.
He said increasingly erratic weather conditions make it harder to prevent major fires.
The latest seasonal bushfire forecast for spring found that unseasonal rainfall in Queensland and the Northern Territory had increased fuel loads and, as a result, increased fire danger.
Parts of western Victoria and eastern South Australia are also at increased risk of an early start to the fire season, while authorities have warned Tasmania could follow suit if hot, dry conditions continue.
However, Mr Mullins warned that long-term weather predictions during the season have become unreliable due to climate change.
“We saw the Black Summer, the worst fires we’ve ever had after the hottest, driest summer on record, and the worst flooding many places have ever experienced the following year,” he said.
Drastic changes in climate also made it much more difficult to conduct risk-reduction burns, as sudden, intense winds could cause trees to grow out of control.
Former NSW Fire and Rescue Commissioner Greg Mullins (pictured) has warned that unpredictable weather could lead to major bushfires and flooding this year.
Having spent more than five decades as a professional and volunteer firefighter, he believes firefighters are likely to help Australians across the country during the bushfires and other emergencies this year.
“The windows are closing on us to be able to apply our best mitigation tool in wide areas,” Mullins said. “It’s like we’re fighting with one arm behind our back.”
While this wildfire season is unlikely to be as catastrophic as the Black Summer of 2019/20, the risk of fires could still be immediate.
‘Flash droughts’, which are brief periods of intense heat and drought, can quickly transform areas that have recently received rain into highly flammable conditions suitable for fires in just a few weeks.
‘When vegetation is stressed, dying and burning easily, all it needs is wind.
“When it’s hot and the humidity is low, add wind and you’re in trouble.”
Mr Mullins expects there to be major fires in the coming months and also the possibility of flooding in some states, which will require emergency workers to cross borders to provide assistance.
“I know that today’s leaders have a very high level of preparedness at all times, because the likelihood of extreme weather events occurring is much greater than it was a decade or two ago,” he said.
He warned that our ability to fight fires this season could become more difficult because firefighting planes loaned by the U.S. could be left behind to deal with their longer fire seasons.
Mullins warned that California is expected to experience its worst fire season ever just as Australia’s fire season begins to intensify.
“Resources around the world are limited… California, Colorado and Idaho are seeing their fire seasons lengthened to accommodate the large aircraft we rent for the summer,” he said.
“So if we have big fires now there’s only one, maybe two, big water bomber planes in Australia and the big helicopters are all working in California and Colorado.”
AFAC chief executive Rob Webb said climate change had lengthened the wildfire season in several regions, but spring was the typical peak in northern areas.
“There’s no doubt that because of climate change our fire seasons are getting longer, but the typical peak of the fire season in northern Australia is at this time of year, in the August and September period, and continues south into the summer months,” he explained.
“But the bottom line is that a normal season still means bushfires in Australia and, whether it’s spring or summer, it’s an important time for people to be prepared.”
Their main concern is the possibility of “flash droughts” that suddenly turn land into tinderboxes, leading to catastrophic wildfires within weeks (pictured: Black Summer fires in 2019).
Large swathes of Australia are more likely than average to be affected by “significant” wildfires in the coming season (pictured, AFAC spring wildfire outlook)
The firefighter said the likelihood of extreme weather events had increased over the past two decades and were becoming more devastating (pictured, floods in Moree, New South Wales, in 2022)
Several heat records have been broken in recent weeks, including Australia’s highest winter temperature, recorded at Yampi Sound, northeast of Broome in Western Australia, on 26 August.
The maximum temperature of 41.6°C eclipsed a record of 41.2°C also set in Western Australia in August 2020.
A high of 40°C in the north-west of the Northern Territory set a new record for August, while South Australia broke its monthly record on 24 August when the mercury hit 39.4°C in Oodnadatta, almost 3°C higher than the record set in 1946.
There have already been widespread wildfires in several states, including dozens of blazes in New South Wales after abnormally warm late winter weather.
Mr Webb said high temperatures before spring created ideal conditions for the fires to spread.
“Whenever vegetation is under stress, if there are particularly hot or dry conditions, it dries out and evaporates, making it easier for any fire that starts to spread a little bit faster,” he said.
“This will tend to dry out the fuels a little bit more and that’s what we need in a bad fire season: something to burn.”
Warm conditions are forecast to continue through spring.
