Heavy rain forces evacuations near Sydney CNN
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This Australian Wildlife Organization Is On A Mission To Improve Its Employee And Guest Experience Forbes
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Tree Burns on the Inside During Thunderstorms in Australia The Weather Channel
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Tree Burns on the Inside During Thunderstorms in Australia The Weather Channel
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SYDNEY—Natural disasters are unpredictable events with broadly predictable results: a destruction of property and wealth, but no lasting impact on economic growth.
Australia’s wildfires, which have ravaged more than 26,000 square miles of land and killed at least 30 people, will be the latest big test of that view. At stake is the country’s 28-year run without a recession—the longest ongoing streak in the developed world.
Natural disasters inflict immediate pain on an economy because they disrupt activity, stopping consumers from going to shops and shuttering businesses for a time. Later comes a growth kick as damaged infrastructure and wrecked buildings get rebuilt. In Australia’s New South Wales state, more than 2,000 homes have been destroyed by fires that have torn through an area the size of West Virginia, mostly in the past couple of months.
Australia’s central bank believes the economy will quickly weather the impact of the wildfires. On Feb. 4, it said the blazes would exert just a temporary drag on growth, as it forecast a 2.75% expansion in gross domestic product this year.
Among economists, however, a range of views has opened up.
Westpac Banking Corp.
says its estimate that the bush fires will cut GDP by 0.2% percentage point appears conservative, given other forecasters are projecting a hit to growth of up to 0.5% point. The recent coronavirus outbreak poses another serious economic threat, as China is the top buyer of Australian commodities, and many mainland tourists and students travel to cities including Sydney.
Australia’s economy was already flashing warning signs before the first blazes flared, with U.S.-China trade frictions taking a toll. One survey of consumer confidence released late last year found that 40% of Australians thought 2020 would be worse than 2019, the worst reading since the early 1990s.
The country’s central bank cut interest rates three times last year, giving a boost to employment growth, but the fires’ impact could stall hiring.
"The combined impact of global trade disruptions, slow local consumption, the residential construction downturn, drought and the ongoing bush-fire crisis are taking their toll on local production this summer,” said
Innes Willox,
chief executive of Ai Group, which represents businesses. Its performance of manufacturing index fell in January to its lowest level for five years.
The Australian government has established an initial $1.3 billion bush-fire recovery fund. Still, a big uncertainty is how quickly two of the country’s biggest industries—tourism and agriculture—bounce back.
Tourism operators say longer-term bookings are down after images of Australia on fire went global. Many wilderness areas and campgrounds popular with domestic tourists remain shut. Last month, authorities had scrambled to get tourists out of a 5,000-square-mile zone threatened by fire, with many visitors evacuated from the cut-off beach resort of Mallacoota by a naval ship.
A family of evacuees from China's Wuhan city are quarantined at the Australian Immigration Detention Centre on Christmas Island, an Australian territory.
Photo:
richard wainwright/Shutterstock
“If you saw that TV vision would you be bringing your kids back down here?” said Paul Preston, who has owned the Beachcomber Caravan Park in Mallacoota for around 20 years.
Oxford Economics, an advisory firm, last month estimated losses to Australia’s tourism industry at $3 billion, or around 5% of revenue for accommodation and food services, noting the fires happened during peak travel season. “But the final impact could be higher than this,” it said.
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Since then, the tourism industry has suffered another blow as the coronavirus spread. Australia’s government has barred foreign nationals who have been in mainland China from entering the country.
Qantas Airways Ltd.,
Australia’s national flag carrier, has suspended flights to the mainland.
To assess the fires impact,
Commonwealth Bank of Australia
studied salary data as a proxy for economic activity in the aftermath of previous natural disasters. It found the negative effects of previous bush fires were more enduring than from floods.
Shane Oliver,
chief economist at AMP Capital, said rebuilding may not happen as quickly as many experts think.
Insurers could become leery about covering homes where there is a fire risk. Some analysts say banks have recently been unwilling to give home loans to people in inland areas. Builders may also wait to see if an inquiry into the bush-fire disaster resets construction codes.
Dramatic footage shows firefighters driving through blazes in Australia. As emergency services tackle the country’s wildfires, vulnerabilities in the global firefighting network have emerged. Photo: State of Victoria/AFP via Getty Images
“Some rural communities may never fully recover, particularly where industries have been destroyed,” Mr. Oliver said.
In eastern Australia, the fires follow a three-year drought that has stretched rural finances. Crops and livestock herds can take years to rebuild. Many farmers lost equipment and fences that weren’t insured.
Stephen Shipton, who runs a 1,100-acre farm in Cobargo, New South Wales, lost a third of his cattle and estimates it will be three years before his herd recovers. He estimated losses from the fires could exceed $200,000, with higher costs looming as farmers compete for hay and fodder.
“I can’t afford to buy any cattle at this point because I’ve got too many other things to be putting my money toward—such as fencing, piping and infrastructure,” he said.
CANBERRA, Australia -- Ken Thompson warned that a calamity was imminent, but those with the power to help did not listen.
The former deputy commissioner of New South Wales fire and rescue services sounded the alarm long before wildfires killed 34 Australians, decimated the country's unique wildlife and created a smoke cloud so vast it was visible from space.
"We could just see it coming," said Thompson, who last August co-founded Emergency Leaders for Climate Action (ELCA), a group of experts with huge collective experience dealing with fires and natural disasters.
"You only had to look at the conditions the fire agencies and the land management agencies use to determine the fire danger index -- the amount of fuel on the ground, the heat, humidity, wind and so forth -- and you could see it."
Jan. 31, 202000:31
The group first warned in an Oct. 4 open letter that the nation was unprepared for "increasingly catastrophic extreme weather events." Climate change was worsening “extreme weather events,” with bushfire season lasting longer and longer, it said.
“The number of days of Very High to Catastrophic bushfire danger each year are increasing across much of Australia and are projected to get even worse,” they said. The group requested a meeting with Prime Minister Scott Morrison to help the government make plans to mitigate the impending crisis.
While they are still burning, Australia’s blazes have died down significantly as cooler weather and rain bring desperately needed relief. Still, ELCA members are fighting to be heard, warning that future fire seasons will only be worse if the root causes are not addressed.
Feb. 7, 202000:52
Morrison strongly defends his government’s disaster preparations. In a Dec. 10 press conference, he said a “nationally coordinated operation” had been on foot “for some time.”
Morrison, the leader of the country’s Liberal Party, and his colleagues are either reluctant to discuss any link between global warming and the fires, or totally reject the idea. Many of their critics say the government has failed not only to address the crisis, but face up to its causes and prepare for future fire seasons.
“There has been a lot of blame being thrown around,” Morrison said at a Jan. 5 press conference. “And now is the time to focus on the response that is being made. ... Blame doesn’t help anybody at this time, and over-analysis of these things is not a productive exercise.”
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He went on to deny that his government had minimized the threat of climate change.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison tours the fire devastated Wildflower farm owned by Paul and Melissa Churchman in Sarsfield, Victoria on Jan. 3.James Ross / AP file
“There is no dispute in this country about the issue of climate change globally and its effect on global weather patterns, and that includes how it impacts in Australia,” he said. “The government has always made this connection and that has never been in dispute.”
The prime minister’s office did not respond to NBC News’ requests for comment.
Morrison’s detractors reject this, pointing to numerous examples of the government belittling or questioning the links between climate change and extreme weather events such as fires.
“We’ve had fires in Australia since … time began,” he told a local reporter. “What people need now is a little bit of sympathy, understanding and real assistance.”
“They don’t need the ravings of some pure, enlightened and woke capital-city greenies,” McCormack added.
Bruce Leaver, a former forester and national parks manager, cannot be described as a “capital-city greenie.” He spent decades leading efforts to prevent and fight major bushfires, and his deep expertise has led to senior-level roles in state and federal government.
“Fires are a pretty heartbreaking thing to get involved in,” said Leaver, 74, who retired from public service in 2010 and has seen the most recent fire season up close while defending his farm near the village of Cobargo on the coast of New South Wales.
Leaver said he had warned friends and neighbors for several years that a major fire was imminent. Few others in the lush coastal region shared his level of concern, even as drought turned the area tinder-dry.
A wildfire claimed the Train Cafe and hundreds of other homes, shops and farms in and around Cobargo, a rural village in southeast New South Wales.Stephen Easton / for NBC News
The landscape was becoming more and more “combustible,” making wildfires increasingly inevitable, Leaver told NBC News in Queanbeyan, a small city beside Australia’s capital Canberra.
“Over the last few years I've noticed with horror the drying out of the landscape and the lack of water in my dams, so my fire preparations escalated, year before last,” he said. “I thought, 'This is not going to end well.’”
He said he was “absolutely horrified” by the locations of many homes in the area and their “total lack of protection” from fire.
The day after NBC News spoke to him, Leaver’s own farm was threatened again by a fire that flared up during the interview.
The intensity of this year’s blazes shocked even him.
“In the words of survivors, you often hear the term, 'the roar of the locomotives' -- and I heard it,” he told NBC News.
The ELCA, which now counts 29 members, has not stopped accusing Morrison of a major failure of leadership.
Greg Mullins, a co-founder of the group, was the fire and rescue chief for New South Wales state in the southeast of the country for over 13 years "Like countless other men and women on the front line, I have faced off against 30-meter walls of flame, seen many homes burned to the ground, tried to console inconsolable residents, been forced to run for safety and seen native animals bounding out of the burning bush to collapse and die," Mullins wrote on Jan. 20 in a fuming editorial.
He said this "devastating" experience was made all the worse because ELCA has been trying to warn the prime minister of a looming disaster since the fall, and he felt its concerns were "ignored and trivialized" and its advice “ridiculed” by partisan opponents.
Meanwhile, Peter Dunn, another ELCA member, was in the thick of it after taking charge of local disaster recovery in the area near Lake Conjola some 125 miles south of Sydney. It is one of many residential areas to be devastated by an explosive firestorm hot enough to melt aluminium car parts.
The local authorities learned valuable lessons, and Canberra’s defenses this summer (winter in the Northern Hemisphere) have held up -- so far.
Some local governments may be learning important lessons, but Thompson, the former deputy commissioner of New South Wales fire and rescue services, worries that the ELCA’s message has still not penetrated.
After the interview with NBC News, he sends a follow-up text with a final plea: "These fires are a wake-up call, not just to Australia but the rest of the world."
A memorial service was held for an American airman who died fighting Australia's deadly wildfires before his body was repatriated to the U.S. on Saturday.
Rick DeMorgan Jr. was one of three Americans killed on Jan. 23, when their water bombing air tanker came down in New South Wales.
The remains of captain Ian C. McBeth, 44, and first officer Paul C. Hudson, 42, were flown home earlier this week. A memorial service was held for the pair before they were repatriated on Wednesday.
The ceremony for DeMorgan Jr. took place at an Australian Air Force Military base near Sydney.
Shane Fitzsimmons, Commissioner of the New South Wales Rural Fire Service, thanked the three men for their service on Twitter.
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A moving & most fitting farewell for our 3rd Coulsons fire fighting aviator this morning at Richmond RAAF with the transfer of Rick DeMorgan onto the US C1-17 aircraft for the journey home. Rick’s colleagues, Ian & Paul went home with family on Wednesday. Thank you all #NSWRFSpic.twitter.com/VjhPtEaAYU
The crew were working for Coulson Aviation, a private U.S. company that was contracted by the Rural Fire Service in order to help fight the fires.
DeMorgan, who had two children, served with the Air Force and had worked for 18 years as a C-130 flight engineer, according to the company.
The flight engineer was a resident of Florida.
The three were among hundreds of North American firefighters who joined an international effort to battle the devastating fires that have killed more than 30 people and destroyed more than 2,500 homes in Australia. Eight of those killed have been firefighters, the Reuters press agency reported.
On Saturday, Western Australia braced for a tropical cyclone, while the battered east coast faces flash flood warnings.
Severe tropical cyclone Damien made landfall on the west coast on Saturday afternoon. It is forecast to bring ferocious winds and a potentially dangerous storm tide.
Meanwhile, the eastern Australian state of New South Wales is simultaneously bracing for severe wet weather this weekend.
There were still more than 40 active fires on the East Coast, according to Reuters — half of them yet to be contained — but fire services said the downpours this weekend may help to dampen them.
