Millions Living in Australian Cities’ Outskirts at Risk of Los Angeles-Style Wildfires, Report Warns

The report comes as a heatwave not seen since the Australian Black Summer wildfires of 2019-20 is esxpected to hit southern parts of the country this week.

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Millions of Australians living on the expanding outskirts of the country’s cities and major regional centers are at increased risk of experiencing devastating wildfires, a new report has warned.

Outskirt urban areas, including the Dandenong Ranges in Victoria, Perth Hills, Adelaide Hills, the Blue Mountains, Sydney suburbs, New South Wales Central Coast, Hobart’s suburbs and Canberra’s western edge, are already some of the most fire-exposed urban areas in the world as they are built near highly flammable bush and grassland. But with human-driven climate change worsening, the risk of devastating fires reaching urban areas is on the rise, the report by the Climate Council and Emergency Leaders for Climate Action warned.

Both the frequency and intensity of wildfires have more than doubled in the last two decades, as more frequent hot, dry, and windy conditions create the ideal environment for ignition and spread. Climate change has also increased the wildfire season by roughly two weeks on average globally, primarily by increasing fuel availability through high temperatures and aridity.

A 2024 paper said that six of the last seven years featured the most “energetically intense” wildfire activity on record, when the ecological, social and economic consequences of wildfires were accounted for.

Los Angeles-Style Catastrophe Increasingly Possible

Wildfires are no novelty in Australia. The country has seen large-scale events in Canberra in 2003, in Victoria in 2009, in Tasmania and the New South Wales Blue Mountains in 2013, and, most notably, in 2019-20, when the Black Summer bushfires burned 24 million hectares (59 million acres; 240,000 square kilometers), destroyed thousands of buildings, killing more than 30 people and harming an estimated 3 billion animals country-wide. 

An investigation by the Bushfire Royal Commission later confirmed that climate change fueled the Black Summer fires and outlined 80 recommendations for federal and state action.

Scientists have long warned that similar events could happen again as fossil fuel burning continues to heat up the planet. But the new report, published Tuesday, focuses on the possibility that these events will reach urban areas, drawing parallels with the devastating Los Angeles fires from a year ago.

The fires broke out on January 7, at a time when LA County was tinder dry after experiencing its hottest summer in at least 130 years and receiving only 0.16 inches (4.1mm) of rain since May 2024. Powerful winds, coupled with an abundance in tinder-dry vegetation and heat, made for one of the city’s costliest fire events in the US history, and the most expensive extreme weather event of 2025 globally. Dozens of people were killed and more than 18,000 homes and structures destroyed as the fires burned over 23,281 hectares (57,529 acres; 232.8 square kilometers). 

“Like California, many parts of Australia have a hot and dry climate,” read the report. “Our analysis shows that the outskirts of Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra, Adelaide, Perth and Hobart share characteristics that made the LA fires so destructive.”

Heatwave

The report comes as a heatwave not seen since the 2019-20 Black Summer is set to affect Australia’s southern regions this week. Temperatures are expected to rise well into the 40s and be 8-16C above average through parts of South Australia, Victoria and New South Wales, the Guardian reported.

Featured image: Bruce Detorres/Flickr.

More on the topic: ‘Hotter, Drier, and More Flammable’: Climate Change Played a Role in LA Fire, New Study Finds