Unequal Burdens in Australia’s Black Summer Fires

Laughing Kookaburra

22-09-2025

– In the same field, how can the two sides be so different? The guys over there are dead serious, while you guys are cheery and breezy.

In “Light and Free”; Wild Wise Weird (2024)

© Wix

Australia’s 2019–2020 “Black Summer” wildfires were among the most destructive in recorded history, burning an area twice the size of Belgium and devastating communities, ecosystems, and economies [1]. While much attention has focused on property and asset losses, a new study reveals the less visible—but equally critical—impacts on people’s livelihoods, housing, and unpaid work. These losses expose deep inequalities across poverty, gender, and geography.

Akter and Grafton [2] used census and fire extent data to analyze well-being across three domains: income, housing, and unpaid household work. Results showed that income losses were concentrated in heavily burned forest-fringe areas, where weekly median earnings dropped by about 1.5%. Housing pressures mounted in poorer neighborhoods, where rents rose by nearly 10% and overcrowding increased, partly due to underinsurance, rebuilding delays, and COVID-19 supply chain disruptions. Unpaid domestic work also surged. In high-burned areas, both men and women exceeded 15 hours of household labor per week; however, in non-poor areas, men’s workloads showed no significant change, while women’s increased, further widening pre-existing gender gaps.

These findings highlight how wildfires exacerbate pre-existing inequalities. Poor communities bore disproportionate burdens despite having fewer tangible assets at risk, while women faced intensified domestic workloads. Such patterns demonstrate the need for disaster policies that move beyond asset-based recovery models, which tend to favor wealthier populations [3,4].

From a broader perspective, the Black Summer experience underscores that climate-driven megafires are not only ecological disasters but also social shocks that ripple through communities. Addressing them requires cultivating Nature Quotient (NQ)—the human capacity to perceive and act upon ecological interconnections—within the society. An NQ-informed approach would recognize that protecting forests, supporting vulnerable groups, and balancing domestic care responsibilities are interconnected facets of resilience [5].

As extreme wildfires become more frequent worldwide, the lessons from Australia stress the urgency of integrating gender, poverty, and place into climate adaptation planning. Only by acknowledging the full scope of socioeconomic well-being losses can societies build just and sustainable pathways through the firestorms of the future [6].

References

[1] Boer MM, ∙ Resco de Dios V, ∙ Bradstock RA. (2020). Unprecedented burn area of Australian mega forest fires. Nature Climate Change, 10, 171-172. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-020-0716-1

[2] Akter S, Grafton RQ. (2025). Socioeconomic well-being losses of Australia’s Black Summer fires (2019–2020): Burden by burned area, poverty, and gender. One Earth, 101454. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.oneear.2025.101454

[3] Collins T. (2008). The political ecology of hazard vulnerability: marginalization, facilitation and the production of differential risk to urban wildfires in Arizona's White Mountains. Journal of Political Ecology, 15, 21-43. https://doi.org/10.2458/v15i1.21686

[4] Booth K,∙ Tranter B.  (2017). When disaster strikes: Under-insurance in Australian households Urban Studies, 55, 3135-3150.

[5] Vuong QH, Nguyen MH. (2025). On Nature Quotient. Pacific Conservation Biology, 31, PC25028. https://doi.org/10.1071/PC25028 

[6] Nguyen MH. (2024). How can satirical fables offer us a vision for sustainability? Visions for Sustainability, 23(11267), 323-328. https://doi.org/10.13135/2384-8677/11267