New World For Tropical Queensland; Hotter Deadlier Bushfire Seasons That Didn't Exist 20 Years Ago
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Paul Gray, a representative of the Queensland Firefighters’ Union, says the nature of bushfires has noticeably changed in recent years. The fires, he says, have become more intense and longer-lasting. Last week conditions in parts of Queensland were classified “catastrophic” for the first time. The rating has only existed since 2009, but no bushfire in the state since 1966, when warnings were first introduced, would have been considered so dangerous.
“They’re always intense, but now you’re getting punished for days and days. Instead of a heatwave lasting one day, heatwaves are lasting four days or longer,” Gray says. “It makes it more difficult for fire crews to stand down, we lose the ability to rotate. Firefighters are working longer hours on protracted incidents for days at a time. There is an increasing need for out-of-state and overseas assistance, because it’s getting harder to relieve our own crews.”
Australia’s devastating bushfires typically occur far to the south of the tropical Queensland rainforest. But Gray says the fire season in the north now lasts longer. That means a diminishing timeframe to allow emergency services to change tack from firefighting to battling cyclones and floodwaters, which historically have caused many more deaths and wider destruction in Queensland.
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“Climate change is about unprecedented conditions becoming more probable,” says the climate scientist Lesley Hughes. “What was normal on average 20 years ago is not normal or average now. If you’re getting unprecedented conditions, that’s what climate scientists have been warning about.” The word unprecedented has been used repeatedly to describe Queensland’s weather this past week. Centuries-old heat records were broken in north Queensland, most remarkably in Cairns, where the hottest November temperature had been a 37.2C day in 1900. On Monday last week, Cairns was recorded at 42.6C. The following four days were all hotter than the previous record.
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https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/dec/04/bushfires-tropics-queensland-terrifying-new-reality-cyclones-flooding