A year ago a reader sent in this link to an animated map of global wildfires as seen from space. Australian forest fires are only minor in comparison to seasonal fires in equatorial Africa, Southern Africa, South America and many parts of Asia! For a start there are often lightning strike fires over much of Australia, most of these burn themselves out naturally and are just part of the ecology.
Jan 2003 You can see the fire that impacted Canberra but it is minor compared to what is happening elsewhere.
Feb 2009 Black Saturday fires are very minor signatures on a global scale.
Andrew Bolt has asked if we are becoming climate pussies. Given media reporting of bushfire I think you could argue that.
The ABS is a reliable (not infested with warmist mania) source of bushfire information.
Bushfires caused significant damage in the 19th and 20th centuries. Vast areas of grassland and forest have been burnt, large numbers of livestock were killed, houses and other buildings were destroyed and many human lives were taken. Several of the fires are etched on the memories of Australians, despite the passing of the years.
The ‘Black Thursday’ fires of 6 February 1851 in Victoria, burnt the largest area (approximately 5 million ha) in European-recorded history and killed more than one million sheep and thousands of cattle as well as taking the lives of 12 people (CFA 2003a; DSE 2003b). On ‘Red Tuesday’, 1 February 1898 in Victoria 260,000 ha were burnt, 12 people were killed and 2000 buildings were destroyed (DSE 2003b).
Between December 1938 to January 1939, 1.5-2.0 million ha were burnt, 71 people were killed and over 1000 homes destroyed in Victoria (DSE 2003b, 2003c). The most devastation occurred on ‘Black Friday’, 13 January 1939, when strong northerly winds intensified fires burning in almost every part of the state. Townships were destroyed and others badly damaged. So much ash and smoke was generated that ash fell as far away as New Zealand (DSE 2003c). Five years later in 1944, bushfires in Victoria burnt an estimated one million ha, killed between 15 and 20 people and destroyed more than 500 houses (DSE 2003b).
www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/0/ccb3f2e90ba779d3ca256dea00053977?OpenDocument