devastating wildfire_Australia
Wildfires, they’ve always been around, causing damage but not a lot. For years, we never thought forest fires would do much harm, that they were easy to put out. World leaders were not even concerned about wildfires, because they happen often and they cause little damage. However, we were not all prepared or expecting Australia’s most devastating forest fire. The damage cannot be explained in words, this happened in 2020. Australia literally lost millions of animals, and I’m not exaggerating, we literally lost millions of animals. I was speechless when I heard about this, I’m very doubtful if Australia will ever recover from this event.
And just like every wildfire, this one also started small, due to climate change temperatures were rising in Australia. Nobody thought much of it, some scientists were a bit concerned but they didn’t think much of it. And some time later, we have a devastating wildlife that kills millions of animals. Unpredictability is what made this wildfire so deadly. This is because of Climate Change, the amount of heat rose so much that they caught on fire. The wildlife of Australia, already struggling to survive, died in massive numbers during this wildfire. It is shocking and unexpected; nobody expected the degree of devastation to reach this level. And even today (2023), below the soil of Australian forests lies the decaying bodies of the millions of dead animals that died, this memory still haunts Australia’s wildlife and will probably continue to do so for generations to come.
And after the fire stopped fully, you may think “Now we have nothing to worry about, the problem’s solved. However, the problems had just begun, the fire is just a tiny part of it. Many more animals w died because of starvation, loss of habitat, high competition for limited food and water, etc. Also animal rescues like Australia zoo were overwhelmed with the amount of animals that needed to be treated, I mean it was crazy, thousands of animals were being admitted to wildlife vets. And you had to go out to the burnt area, look for injured animals and bring them back for medical treatment. That was very hard, I mean you have to catch the animal, that takes sometimes a lot of effort and in that time they sometimes can die because of burn marks, infection, blood loss, etc. The disaster is not over just because the fire ended.
We have made a big mistake by burning fossil fuels, because of that so many animals had to lose their lives. The only good thing we can do as of now is try to prevent this from happening again. We need to invest in renewable technologies and we need to replace fossil fuels ASAP. I mean we’re already able to see the effects, for years the science has been crystal clear. And this is just the beginning of the 6th mass extinction, it’s already started. Earth is due for an extinction event but we can lessen its impact by taking action now. We can encourage people to reduce their carbon footprint. And we need to train fire fighters how to help an animal. The Australian government will have to increase the funding for these Australian organizations that conserve wildlife and wilderness areas. I believe if we do all this, we might be able to prevent the 6th mass extinction and we can save billions of animals and ecosystems.
