We look at the devastation of Australia’s bushfires and don’t believe it could happen here. But it already is
One
weekend during the fiercely hot summer of 2018, when every single fan
in Sweden had sold out, my boyfriend and I decided to get out of
Stockholm and go camping. When we arrived at the campsite, we were asked
not to smoke, and told firmly that no fires of any kind could be lit,
owing to the forest fires that had been raging from the Arctic Circle to the Baltic Sea.
Later that day, we received emergency notifications on our phones. Several more fires had broken out all over the country. I slept uneasily that night – and not only because I was on a yoga mat besieged by midges. It was my first experience of living with the climate crisis as a low-level but present danger.
This unease is now very familiar to most of us, and has been heightened by what we’re seeing in Australia. Since the fire season began there, in the middle of last year, 29 people have died, along with more than a billion animals, and an area comparable in size to the whole of England has been ablaze. It’s a vicious reminder that, for all the sophistication of the modern world, something as primitive as fire can still bring us to our knees. As shocking as the scale of the destruction has been, though, it’s easy to see it on our computer screens here on the other side of the world, in the middle of a British winter, and feel disconnected from it. We accept that the climate emergency is now truly upon us yet still feel that it’s mostly happening to other people, elsewhere.
But wildfires are increasingly a problem for everyone,
including in the UK. Last August, there were almost five times as many
of them around the world as there had been the previous August. In the
EU, the number of wildfires in the first half of 2019 was three times the annual average for the previous decade.
And while they used to be a serious problem only in hotter, southern
European countries such as Portugal and Spain, now northern Europe is in
trouble too.Later that day, we received emergency notifications on our phones. Several more fires had broken out all over the country. I slept uneasily that night – and not only because I was on a yoga mat besieged by midges. It was my first experience of living with the climate crisis as a low-level but present danger.
This unease is now very familiar to most of us, and has been heightened by what we’re seeing in Australia. Since the fire season began there, in the middle of last year, 29 people have died, along with more than a billion animals, and an area comparable in size to the whole of England has been ablaze. It’s a vicious reminder that, for all the sophistication of the modern world, something as primitive as fire can still bring us to our knees. As shocking as the scale of the destruction has been, though, it’s easy to see it on our computer screens here on the other side of the world, in the middle of a British winter, and feel disconnected from it. We accept that the climate emergency is now truly upon us yet still feel that it’s mostly happening to other people, elsewhere.
The Swedish fires of 2018 were by far the most severe in the country’s history, burning an area almost twice as large as the worst previous wildfire, in 2014. In the UK, 2018 and 2019 were the worst two years on record for wildfires, particularly on moors in the north-west of England and parts of Scotland. One fire last year, at Marsden Moor in Yorkshire, destroyed almost three square miles of land. The damage is on a very different scale to the almost 30,000 square miles that have burned in Australia, of course, but this is still a development we can’t afford to ignore.
Aside from all the more immediate effects – the threat to humans, livestock and wildlife – the recent increase in wildfires has been linked to severe air quality problems. People living up to 62 miles (100km) downwind of fires in the Pennines in 2018 were exposed to toxic fumes. And as there is no sign of cooler weather in the years ahead, it is reasonable to expect more fires in 2020. The EU has now established a fleet of firefighting planes, and the European Forest Institute has warned that unless we take steps to protect the countryside – for instance, by planting less-flammable species and creating barriers to the spread of flames – emergency services won’t be able to prevent the rapid spread and firestorms that have characterised the Australian crisis.
This isn’t all because of the climate crisis – changes to land use and increased urbanisation over several decades are also factors. Weather patterns are noisy data, and it’s difficult to attribute any single wildfire to the climate crisis. The scientific consensus, however, is that it is increasing the intensity and frequency of fire-conducive weather across the world.
Even those fires that are eventually linked to human error, like a still-lit disposable barbecue, are increasingly likely due to warming temperatures. Hotter summers mean more barbecues lit in the first place. The climate crisis is going to change the way we behave in every aspect of our lives. And with the probability of another summer of extreme weather coming, we will need to adapt to new dangers that won’t just be on the other side of the planet but, quite literally, in our own backyards.
It’s not at all clear that we’re ready for what might be coming. There is still a cognitive jump yet to be made when those of us in Europe read about the fires in Australia, from mourning the destruction there to recognising that we face some version of the same threat. When we look at Australia, we’re not looking at the future that might await Europe. That future is already here.
• Imogen West-Knights is a writer and freelance journalist
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