Has Australia always had bushfires this bad?

Cosmos Magazine

Cosmos

Cosmos is a quarterly science magazine. We aim to inspire curiosity in ‘The Science of Everything’ and make the world of science accessible to everyone.

By Cosmos

Fire is a part of our history, and it will be a part of our future no matter how much more carbon gets into the atmosphere. Any glance through a news archive from 1939 or 1983 will show you that Australia is familiar with devastating bushfires. But have we always had bushfires as bad as we’re seeing now? Are the fires truly unprecedented? And are they going to get worse?

In the third season of ‘Debunks’, the new podcast series from the Cosmos newsroom team and Nine Podcasts, science journalist Imma Perfetto explores all the science on bushfires. In this final episode, she takes the long view on our history – and future – of fire. How is climate change affecting bushfires, and what might we see in the future?

Debunks is a science podcast that asks questions that you actually want answered. Each week a journalist in the Cosmos newsroom expertly guides listeners through the science topics of the day, from EVs and bushfires to Ozempic. Plus we unpack all the misinformation that comes with it.

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