Australia bushfire statistics

Severity of Australian bushfire seasons over time

Any bushfire event can be terrible for those affected, but there's been a definite movement upwards in the severity of Ausrtalia's bushfire seasons. The below table charts the severity of NSW bushfire seasons over the last 20 years, according to the Annual Reports of the NSW Rural Fire Service. This doesn't capture every bushfire season, but the general trend up certainly holds across the country.

Note that the 2019-2020 bushfire season in NSW was much more severe than anything Australia has ever seen before - more on that later.

Weekly fire alerts in Australia

Australia's bushfire season normally starts around August, and can run all the way through to Autumn, as late as March or April. One way of understanding how bad a given fire season will be is to look at the number of weekly fire alerts. The graph below comes from Global Forest Watch, and tracks this number.

Source: Global Forest Watch: Fires Australia

Black Summer: Australia's 2019-2020 Bushfire season statistics

The 2019-2020 bushfire season was probably the worst in living memory. Unprecedented areas of bush was incinerated, and the smoke from the fires caused air pollution issues as far as South America and Antarctica.

Just look at the amount of tree cover lost in 2019 and 2020 compared to other years in the below data from Global Forest Watch. 2019 and 2020 saw a massive spike in the amount of fire-related tree loss, around 10 times as much as previous seasons.

Of course, these weren't the only impact of the 2019-2020 bushfires. According to the NSW Environment Protection Authority (EPA) the 2019–20 Black Summer fires:

• Burnt 5.5 million hectares of land across NSW
• Displaced 3 billion vertebrate animals across south-east Australia
• Generated 50% more thunderstorms that ever recorded (since 1978)

While the Black Summer fires were the worst on record, the world has had a lot of record breaking weather events in recent decades. Aside from the danger of climate change, the best lesson we can learn from it might be that it could happen again, and to be well prepared.

How worried are Australians about bushfires and floods?

We run a nationally representative survey each month, the Finder Consumer Sentiment Tracker.

Source: Finder Consumer Sentiment Tracker survey of 1,062 Australians, October 2023

How many Australians are insured against bushfire?

There are a few insurance products that are useful in protection against bushfire. The main one is home and contents insurance - you can't move you home out of the way, after all! However, car insurance and life insurance are both important products Aussie use to protect themselves.

Home and contents insurance

Home and contents protects exactly what it says on the tin. People that are in bushfire prone areas are likely to need coverage for their biggest asset and their personal belongings. However, not all Australians are as well covered as they should be.

60% have home and contents insurance

Car insurance

Cars can go up in flames just as easily as homes. However, Third Party Property car insurance will not cover fire. Despite that, it's a very commonly held product. People in bushfire prone areas should consider either Third Party Fire and Theft or Comprehensive car insurance.

Life insurance

It might be a bit grim to think about, but life insurance can also be really important for Aussies looking to cover themselves for bushfire. If the worst were to happen, life insurance can pay your debts and leave you family with support.

Written by

Tim Bennett

Insurance expert

A seasoned journalist with over 10 years of experience in news, politics and finance reporting, Tim has previously held roles at the ABC, SBS and Fairfax Media. Tim’s expert insights have been quoted in The Australian, The Daily Telegraph, The Courier Mail and more. He regularly appears on TV and radio, and has been interviewed on 7 News, Sunrise, SBS News, ABC Local, 3AW and 5AA. Tim is passionate about simplifying complex insurance topics for Australian consumers. He holds a Bachelor of Arts (Politics) from Macquarie University and a Tier 1 General Insurance (General Advice) certification, which meets the requirements of ASIC Regulatory Guide 146 (RG146). If you’re interested in a media interview with Tim, please reach out to our PR team at aupr@finder.com. See full bio

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