NSW 2019-20 Bushfire Season - Graphs

As is well known the 2019-20 summer bushfire season in most parts of Australia was catastrophic.

The New South Wales Rural Fire Service has an app called Fires Near Me and the various current fire related incidents were recorded.there. For some of the period, I recorded the entries. The different fires might range from Grass fires, Bush fires, Hazard Reduction, Vehicle fires etc.

Of particular interest are the bush fires, grass fires and hazard reduction fires.as these destroyed the most in terms of the environment and natural wildlife habitat. Many houses and other infrastructure was lost not to mention the tragic human toll and subsequent financial and mental hardships to individuals, families and communities.

It has since been reported that the vast amounts of smoke from these large events has brought on premature deaths on a scale similar to Covid-19 in these areas.

The following graph represents the land area in NSW that was currently burning (active fires) or burnt (but that fire not yet declared "out" and removed from the lists).

The horizontal (time line) ranges from December 3 2019 to February 21 2020. 

The above graph is based on the following data. Unfortunately some of the earlier fires in the season were not recorded but many started in October 2019.

In March 2020 many fires were put out by long overdue heavy rains.