Contemporary · Oceania · Disaster

2019

Australia's Black Summer

December 30, 2019

Bushfires that had been smoldering since spring exploded across Australia's south-east, killing 33 people directly, displacing thousands, and pushing nearly three billion native animals into ash, smoke, or death in what became the worst fire season in the continent's recorded history. Sydney's air turned hazardous orange. The continent's relationship with fire, and with its government's climate denialism, changed.