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Speaker 1: My name is Lily Maddon and I'm a proud Arunda

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Speaker 1: Bunjelung Calcottin woman from Gadigl Country. The Daily oz acknowledges

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Speaker 1: that this podcast is recorded on the lands of the

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Speaker 1: Gadighl people and pays respect to all Aboriginal and Torres

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Speaker 1: Strait Island and nations. We pay our respects to the

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Speaker 1: first peoples of these countries, both past and present.

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Speaker 2: Good morning and welcome to the Daily os. It's Monday

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Speaker 2: to twenty seventh of February. I'm Sam, I'm Zara. After

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Speaker 2: three years of wet weather, you might expect that the

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Speaker 2: fire risk of this next summer is going to be

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Speaker 2: pretty low, but actually a new report says that Australia

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Speaker 2: is primed to burn, with a potentially devastating fire season

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Speaker 2: ahead and in some cases fires are already burning.

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Speaker 3: And emergency warning has been issued for Flowerdale where a

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Speaker 3: fast moving grass fire is threatening homes.

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Speaker 4: This burnt through more than two hundred and fifty hectares.

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Speaker 2: So what's behind this risk and what can be done

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Speaker 2: about it? David Caroly, climate researcher for the Climate Council,

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Speaker 2: will be joining us to explain what you need to know.

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Speaker 2: In the deep dive. But first let's do the headlines.

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Speaker 2: Leading the news this morning. The Queensland government announced on

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Speaker 2: Saturday it will allow pill testing services for the very

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Speaker 2: first time. The move came amid a government commitment to

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Speaker 2: quote reduced risks and harms associated with illicit drug use,

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Speaker 2: with Queensland's Health ministers saying the process would inform people

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Speaker 2: what chemical substances are in their drugs. The government confirmed

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Speaker 2: the new scheme would not relax police powers relating to

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Speaker 2: drug possession or supply.

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Speaker 4: The US National Transportation Safety Board has found that the

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Speaker 4: toxic train crash that resulted in a chemical spill in

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Speaker 4: Ohio this month was quote one hundred percent preventable. It's

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Speaker 4: understood that nearly forty four thousand animals have died as

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Speaker 4: a result of the toxic crash.

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Speaker 2: Efforts by finance ministers of the world's twenty largest economies

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Speaker 2: to deliver a unanimous condemnation of Russia's invasion of Ukraine

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Speaker 2: have failed at the G twenty after China refused to

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Speaker 2: agree on the wording of a joint statement instead of

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Speaker 2: an official condemnation. A chair's summary was issued which noted

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Speaker 2: the disagreement. In the summary. The chair noted Russia's invasion

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Speaker 2: quote is causing immense human suffering and exacerbating existing fragilities

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Speaker 2: in the global economy.

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Speaker 4: And the good news new research has found that twenty

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Speaker 4: nine Australian species may have recovered enough to no longer

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Speaker 4: be listed as threatened. This includes fifteen mammal, eight bird,

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Speaker 4: four frog, one reptile and one fish species which could

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Speaker 4: be up for reclassification.

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Speaker 2: A new report from the Climate Council and Emergency Leaders

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Speaker 2: for Climate Action is warning that Australia is primed to burn,

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Speaker 2: but after wetter than average conditions and record breaking rainfall

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Speaker 2: and floods across several states over the last three years,

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Speaker 2: I wanted to know why, and I thought a good

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Speaker 2: person to ask would be Professor David Caroly. He's from

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Speaker 2: the Climate Council. He's an atmospheric scientist formerly at the CSIRO,

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Speaker 2: and he's been involved with working on assessment reports of

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Speaker 2: the IPCC, which is the UN's assessment on climate change. David,

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Speaker 2: thanks for joining us on the podcast this morning.

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Speaker 3: You're most welcome and I'm happy to join you. And

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Speaker 3: it sounds like an interesting program which I wasn't aware of,

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Speaker 3: and an interesting audience.

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Speaker 2: And they're very keen to learn a little bit more

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Speaker 2: about the report that you've co authored which says that

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Speaker 2: Australia is primed to burn. At a top line, why

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Speaker 2: are we primed to burn?

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Speaker 3: Yeah, so, Dorothea mckella wrote a poem, Australia is a

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Speaker 3: land of droughts and flooding rains. We've had those flooding

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Speaker 3: rains and it's due to ocean temperature variations in the Pacific.

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Speaker 3: We've had La Nina events that have led to increased

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Speaker 3: rangefall over eastern Australia for the last three years and

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Speaker 3: it's very unusual to have three repeated line in your events.

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Speaker 3: But what it's meant is that extra rainfall has basically

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Speaker 3: led to massive plant growth in much of eastern and

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Speaker 3: southern Australia. Throughout Northern Australia and even in the arid

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Speaker 3: areas that are normally very dry have had massive greening.

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Speaker 3: And that means the fuel loads for grasses and scrublands

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Speaker 3: throughout Australia have about five times more than the normal

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Speaker 3: fuel load. And as soon as that basically the rains

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Speaker 3: have stopped, the grasses are drying out quickly and there

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Speaker 3: have been outbreaks of grass fires in Victoria just north

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Speaker 3: of Melbourne, outbreaks of grass fires already in Inland New

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Speaker 3: South Wales and the Riverina area, outbreaks of grass fires

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Speaker 3: in southern Queensland. And this powder keg of extra grass

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Speaker 3: growth has provided more fuel for grass fires, and grass

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Speaker 3: fires really move very very quickly in strong wind conditions.

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Speaker 2: Okay, so you're basically saying that three years of heavy

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Speaker 2: rain has led to what you're describing as fuel, which

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Speaker 2: is basically increased vegetation which when it now goes very

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Speaker 2: hot and dries out, you get a powder cake of

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Speaker 2: explosion of fire potential.

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Speaker 3: That's exactly what I was trying to say. We just

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Speaker 3: have to remember that it is in fact an explosive

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Speaker 3: if you're like background or framing, that really makes the

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Speaker 3: grass fires dramatically worse than they would have been at

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Speaker 3: any stage for at least the last five or ten years.

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Speaker 2: And so the point of reference for a lot of

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Speaker 2: us is the twenty nineteen twenty twenty bush fires. Is

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Speaker 2: there a major difference between a grass fire and a

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Speaker 2: forest fire, which is what we saw there?

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Speaker 3: There are some very important differences. First of all, grass

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Speaker 3: fires often occur away from forest country. They move very

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Speaker 3: very quickly because often the fuel is just the grasses

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Speaker 3: and scrub close to the ground, but their flames can

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Speaker 3: still be ten meters high or higher.

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Speaker 2: So there's as equal risk to human life destruction and

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Speaker 2: property destruction. Is that right?

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Speaker 3: There is, and it's important to recognize that. Yes, the

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Speaker 3: twenty nineteen twenty twenty black summer bushfires moved very quickly.

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Speaker 3: In many cases, the grass fires can move just as

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Speaker 3: quickly or even more quickly, because they're basically burning at

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Speaker 3: the speed of the wind. Because the grass ignites really

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Speaker 3: really quickly, and often you'll get very strong winds and

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Speaker 3: that causes very rapid movement of the far front.

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Speaker 2: Can you draw a line for me between the changing

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Speaker 2: conditions that you're describing and now a new risk to

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Speaker 2: Australians and the role of climate.

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Speaker 3: Yes, we've had grass fires in the past, often after

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Speaker 3: larninar events, after the fuel has built up. What we're

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Speaker 3: seeing now is the window for managing fuel in the

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Speaker 3: winter time in the typical cooler, wetter season is much

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Speaker 3: narrower because of climate change. In a somewhat hotter condition

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Speaker 3: and so we've had one and a half degrees of

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Speaker 3: warming across Australia in the last one hundred years. The

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Speaker 3: sorts of conditions we had in twenty nineteen twenty twenty

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Speaker 3: were unprecedented. We're not expecting as hot temperatures until the

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Speaker 3: next a linear event and when do you think that's wow,

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Speaker 3: that's a really good question. And the Bureau of Meteorology

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Speaker 3: is starting to warn for not necessarily later this year.

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Speaker 3: No certain event is likely, but they were actually talking

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Speaker 3: about a fifty to fifty risk of an El Nino

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Speaker 3: event with dry conditions in winter and drier conditions and

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Speaker 3: hotter conditions in spring and summer starting later this year.

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Speaker 3: We won't know for sure, probably for another three to

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Speaker 3: six months, whether an El Nino condition is starting, but

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Speaker 3: even a fifty fifty risk of El Nino, together with

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Speaker 3: climate change which is amping up the extreme events, the

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Speaker 3: heat waves are hotter, the extreme rainfall is more intense,

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Speaker 3: the fire risk is more intense as well, whether it's

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Speaker 3: grass fires or whether it's forest fires, and so we

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Speaker 3: know that we need to plan for extreme fire risk

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Speaker 3: both through April and May in southern Australia as well

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Speaker 3: as through much of this coming spring and summer. When

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Speaker 3: we get the temperatures increasing again as normal and even

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Speaker 3: worse if it's in an event.

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Speaker 2: So it sounds like whether it's an El Nino event

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Speaker 2: or not, we still need to prepare. How do we

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Speaker 2: prepare short term?

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Speaker 3: Look, that's a really good question, and the most important

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Speaker 3: thing to do is seek to manage the fuel load,

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Speaker 3: and that means cutting down any scrubs, reducing any dried

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Speaker 3: up litter, and particularly mowing grasses around buildings, mowing grasses

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Speaker 3: around fences, even on roadsides. It is critically important to

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Speaker 3: get the council to cut the grasses.

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Speaker 2: It sounds like it sounds like a weirdly simple way

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Speaker 2: to address this risk, mowing the lawn.

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Speaker 3: Yes, but it's critically important to also recognize that the

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Speaker 3: grass will grow again and you have to try it

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Speaker 3: keep it short. When the grass is green, it's unlikely

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Speaker 3: to end up being you know, fuel for a grass fire. Yeah. Boy,

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Speaker 3: with hot temperatures, it can really amplify in just a

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Speaker 3: few weeks.

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Speaker 4: We'll be back right after this.

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Speaker 2: I've got one more question for you, David. I wanted

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Speaker 2: to ask you about the process of actually conducting this research.

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Speaker 2: Were you surprised by the dramatic findings?

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Speaker 3: Well, look, we know that climate change is increasing the

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Speaker 3: risk Yes La Nina has led to the predisposition for

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Speaker 3: grass fires associated with the higher fuel loads. We've also

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Speaker 3: got to recognize that climate change is not going away

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Speaker 3: unless we have much stronger action to transition our society

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Speaker 3: and our economy away from using fossil fuels. But ongoing

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Speaker 3: climate change is locked in for at least the next

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Speaker 3: twenty years, even if we will rapidly reduce our emissions.

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Speaker 2: Now sounds like it's up to our generation to steer

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Speaker 2: the planet in the right direction. David, thank you so

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Speaker 2: much for your time.

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Speaker 3: Happy to be involved by.

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Speaker 4: Thanks for joining us on the daily OS. If you

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Speaker 4: learned something from today's episode, don't forget to hit subscribe

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Speaker 4: so there's a TVA episode waiting for you every weekday morning.

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Speaker 4: We'll be back again tomorrow morning, but until then, have

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Speaker 4: a brilliant day.