This is a list of major bushfires in Australia. The list contains individual bushfires and bushfire seasons that have resulted in fatalities, or bushfires that have burned in excess of , or was significant for its damage to particular Australian landmarks. , Australian bushfires accounted for over 800 deaths since 1851 and, in 2012, the total accumulated cost was estimated to be 1.6 billion. In terms of monetary cost however, bushfires have not cost as much in financial terms as the damage caused by

drought A drought is defined as drier than normal conditions.Douville, H., K. Raghavan, J. Renwick, R.P. Allan, P.A. Arias, M. Barlow, R. Cerezo-Mota, A. Cherchi, T.Y. Gan, J. Gergis, D. Jiang, A. Khan, W. Pokam Mba, D. Rosenfeld, J. Tierney, an ...

, severe storms,

hail Hail is a form of solid precipitation. It is distinct from ice pellets (American English "sleet"), though the two are often confused. It consists of balls or irregular lumps of ice, each of which is called a hailstone. Ice pellets generally fal ...

, and

cyclone In meteorology, a cyclone () is a large air mass that rotates around a strong center of low atmospheric pressure, counterclockwise in the Northern Hemisphere and clockwise in the Southern Hemisphere as viewed from above (opposite to an anti ...

s, perhaps because they most commonly occur outside highly populated urban areas. Of all the recorded fires in Australia, the 2009 Black Saturday bushfires in the state of Victoria claimed the largest number of recorded deaths of any individual Australian bushfire or bushfires season173 fatalities over 21 days. The largest known area burnt was between , impacting approximately 15 per cent of Australia's physical land mass, during the

1974–75 Australian bushfire season The 1974–75 Australian bushfire season is a series of bushfires, also known around the world as wildfires, that burned across Australia. Fires that summer burned up an estimated . Approximately 15% of Australia's land mass suffered "extensive f ...

. The most number of homes destroyed was approximately 3,700 dwellings, attributed to Victoria's 1939 Black Friday bushfires. The fires of the summer of 2019–2020 affected densely populated areas including holiday destinations resulting in the New South Wales Rural Fire Service

Commissioner A commissioner (commonly abbreviated as Comm'r) is, in principle, a member of a commission or an individual who has been given a commission (official charge or authority to do something). In practice, the title of commissioner has evolved to in ...

Shane Fitzsimmons Shane Alan Fitzsimmons (born in Sydney) is the Head of Resilience NSW and was previously the Commissioner of the New South Wales Rural Fire Service between September 2007 and April 2020. Career Fitzsimmons joined the NSW Rural Fire Servic ...

, to claim it was "absolutely" the worst bushfire season on record n that state

Australian National University The Australian National University (ANU) is a public research university located in Canberra, the capital of Australia. Its main campus in Acton encompasses seven teaching and research colleges, in addition to several national academies and ...

described the 2019 fire year as "close to average" and the 2020 fire year as "unusually small". Some of the most severe Australian bushfires (single fires and fire seasons) have included:

Notes

References

{{Bushfires in Australia * Bushfires Bushfires