Essay by Eric Worrall
h/t strativarius; The researchers appear to be effectively predicting five events of the same severity as Australia’s 2019-20 “Black Summer”, over the next seven years.
More than 2,400 lives will be lost to bushfires in Australia over a decade, experts predict
Exclusive: Healthcare costs from smoke-related deaths tipped to reach $110m, new modelling led by Monash University suggests
Melissa Davey Medical editor
@MelissaLDaveyMon 2 Jan 2023 01.00 AEDTIn the decade to 2030, more than 2,400 lives will be lost to bushfires in Australia, with healthcare costs from smoke-related deaths tipped to reach $110m, new modelling led by Monash University suggests.
The lead health economist with the university’s Centre for Medicine Use and Safety, Associate Prof Zanfina Ademi, who headed the analysis, said it was important to get a predictive picture of the bushfire situation in Australia and its impact on health and the economy.
“This will underline preventive investment strategies to mitigate the incidence and severity of future bushfires in Australia,” she said.
…
“Even based on conservative assumptions, the health and economic burden of bushfires in Australia looms large,” the paper, published in the journal Current Problems in Cardiology, concluded.
“Human-induced climate change is increasing the likelihood of catastrophic wildfires. This underscores the importance of actions to mitigate bushfire risk.”
…
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/jan/02/more-than-2400-lives-will-be-lost-to-bushfires-in-australia-over-a-decade-experts-predict
The abstract of the paper;
The Hospitalizations for Cardiovascular and Respiratory Conditions, Emergency Department Presentations and Economic Burden of Bushfires in Australia Between 2021 and 2030: A Modelling Study
Zanfina Ademi, Ella Zomer, Clara Marquina, Peter Lee, Stella Talic, Yuming Guo, Danny Liew
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cpcardiol.2022.101416Get rights and content
Abstract
The health and environmental impacts of bushfires results in substantial economic costs to society. The present analysis sought to estimate the burden of bushfires in Australia over 10 years from 2021 to 2030 inclusive. A dynamic model with yearly cycles was constructed to simulate follow-up of the entire Australian population from 2021 to 2030, capturing deaths and years of life lived. Estimated numbers of bushfire-related-deaths, costs of related-hospitalizations, and broader economic costs were derived from published sources. A 5% annual discount rate was applied to all costs incurred and life years lived from 2022 onwards. Over the 10 years from 2021 to 2030, the modelled analysis predicted that 2418 [95% confidence interval (CI) 2412 – 2422] lives would be lost to bushfires, as well as 8590 [95% CI 8573 – 8606] years of life lost (discounted). Healthcare costs arising from deaths for smoke-related conditions, hospitalizations amounted to AUD $110 million [95% CI 91-129 million] (discounted). The impact on gross domestic product (GDP) totaled AUD $17.2 billion. A hypothetical intervention that reduces the impact of bushfires by 10% would save $11 million in healthcare costs and $1.9 billion in GDP. The health and economic burden of bushfires in Australia looms large during 2021 and 2030. This underscores the importance of actions to mitigate bushfire risk. The findings are useful for the future design and delivery and help policy makers to make informed decisions about investment in strategies to reduce the incidence and severity of future bushfires.
Read more: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0146280622003139?via%3Dihub
Sadly the full paper isn’t available. But the prediction seems absurd.
From the study summary;
… In 2019-20, Australia recorded one of the most severe bushfire seasons, with extensive areas of south-eastern Australia affected. Termed the ‘Black Summer’ bushfires, almost 20 million hectares of land were burnt, resulting in over 3000 homes lost, and 34 lives lost directly (including nine firefighters).2,3 Borchers-Arriagada et al estimated there were an additional 417 excess deaths resulting from longer-term consequences of the fire. … It is estimated that the smoke-related healthcare costs of the Black Summer bushfires totaled AUD $1.95 billion.8 This is more than 9 times the median annual cost of bushfires for the previous 19 years (AUD $211 million) …
Read more: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0146280622003139?via%3Dihub
Unfortunately the full details of their model are paywalled. But going by their own numbers, 2412 deaths over the next 7 years is:
2412 ÷ (417 + 34) = 5 x “Black Summer” magnitude bushfires
They are predicting FIVE bushfires in the next seven years or the equivalent in smaller fires. Five fires which are predicted to cause as much harm as a single noteworthy event, the 2019-20 Black Summer fires, which according to their own numbers was nine time as bad as the median severity of events in the previous 19 years.
I don’t have access to their calculations, but given the apparent magnitude of the departure from business as usual, I’m guessing someone mixed up a decimal place in one of their model parameters.
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I wonder what projections they would have made following the fires on 6th February 1851 which burnt a quarter of Victoria, having a much smaller population at that time.
“Fires raged out of control from Barwon Heads, Victoria, to Mount Gambier, South Australia, while the smoke haze spread as far as Tasmania. Approximately 12 people died and 5 million hectares – approximately a quarter of the state of Victoria – was burnt.
Losses included one million sheep and thousands of cattle with many properties and communities destroyed. The fire affected the Wimmera, Portland, Gippsland, Plenty Ranges, Westernport, Dandenong and Heidelberg with extensive damage in Victoria’s Port Phillip district.”
They also ignore that the Australian eucalyptus trees have evolved over the ages to survive fires and regenerate afterwards, in fact fire has become a trigger for their regeneration, so widespread fires must have been an integral part of the landscape forever. The foliage of the eucalyptus has a high oil content which adds to the ferocity of the fires.
There is not doubt that increased rainfall, warmth and CO2 are contributing factors to increased plant growth, but it is mans intervention to extinguish naturally occurring fires that are not directly threatening anyone or anything that leads to a build up of fuel that would otherwise have been burnt before it reached the stage of being impossible to extinguish even with modern equipment, in fact it is nature that finally extinguishes most fires.
Obviously when infrastructure and lives are at risk, intervention must occur, but much could be done to prevent people building in some of the most dangerous areas such as on an elevated position surrounded by eucalyptus trees. This is where many deaths occur. Climate change or not, fires are always going to race up inclines and there is nothing that can be done about that whether it is forested and mere grassland.
fires are always going to race up inclines and there is nothing that can be done about that
Too right it will in temperate zone highland forests like this-
https://www.parks.vic.gov.au/news/2022/07/26/00/42/the-forest-giant
Particularly in late summer with high winds above 40C and once the fire crowns with all that Eucalyptus oil in the canopy Nature has to take its course.
But that’s near or where most folks want to live in Oz compared to the vast Savanna woodlands across northern Australia like so-
https://www.ecosystem-guides.com/Australasian-tropical-and-subtropical-savanna-woodlands.html
Yep that’s largely where steaks and hamburgers come from and the understorey burns regularly every dry season largely from lightning strikes and kites spreading it but also aboriginals with guns flushing out game. You can see why those fires don’t crown even though the canopy is much closer to the ground (impoverished soils) so nobody bothers to put them out apart from protecting settlement/station perimeters. When you see those large termite mounds as distinct from plenty of subterranean termites you can’t see (first pic) you’ll know that’s floodplain in the wet season. Different strokes for different folks.
As I stated above these fires have been happening for ever .
The problem is that the Aussies must be slow learners to build among very inflammable trees.
Dry hot summer conditions have always happened and all ways will .
Its not the climate that has changed it is the growing population wanting to live out side the towns .
Modeled predictions.
When the previous government here in Alberta put forward their plan to eliminate coal fired generation they trotted out studies showing billions in health costs from coal particulates
All made up out of whole cloth
Facts don’t matter with the fossil fuel doomsters and their imaginary pollution-
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-07-25/longevity-ageing-centenarian-lifespan-life-expectency/100123434
They may as well create a computer model that concludes pigs can fly and “publish” that and call it “science.”
“Unfortunately the full details of their model are paywalled.”
That’s probably for the best as it almost certainly doesn’t deserve to see the light of day and no sensible person would pay for the dubious privilege. Soon they’ll probably be modelling the effect on cardiovascular events of throwing another shrimp on the smoking barbie, if they haven’t already done so.
Anyway, aren’t many wildfires getting larger now because many landowners are prohibited from performing precautionary burn-offs to stop small fires turning large?
That’s what I have read in the past. As in the US, sensible forest, bush, and scrub land management has had to give way to the greenalists who decide they know better that the people who actually study it and perform it for a living.
So imaginary human caused climate change will cause lots of imaginary fires that will cause lots of imaginary deaths, imaginary health problems, and imaginary economic costs.
Got it.
And when we reach the end of the decade and it hasn’t happened, will they admit they’re wrong and STFU?
Who reviewed this paper, and what were they smoking?
Modelling pyromania?? Who would have thunk it..
“Of droughts – (el nino) and flooding rains (la nina”)
My model says 2412.6527.
Obviously they’ve got it all wrong. ;-D
Four significant figures with 95% confidence from a model predicting wildfires.
Impressive.
“ The researchers appear to be effectively predicting five events of the same severity as Australia’s 2019-20 “Black Summer”, over the next seven years.”
Please send those “effective” researchers to WA. State… Ours seem to have a LOT of trouble getting FOUR DAYS accurate!