The Emergency Leaders for Climate Action are a cohort of former senior Australian fire and emergency service leaders who have observed how Australia is experiencing increasingly catastrophic extreme weather events that are putting lives, properties and livelihoods at greater risk and overwhelming our emergency services.
The modelling found harm to human health and wellbeing accounts for the largest share of annual losses at 32%, lost business output at 25%, damage to schools and workplaces at 20%, damaged homes at 17% and lost work at 6%. A single event on the scale of the Black Summer fires is costed at $27.7 billion, and the report notes that fire seasons are now 21 per cent longer than they were in 1979.
The new economic modelling quantifies that burden in the most up-to-date figures with bushfires now costing the Australian economy a staggering $6 billion a year on average.
For the bushfire management industry, the significant finding is on the value of prevention: the report estimates that making fires a fifth less damaging would protect more than 5,600 jobs every year. Its recommendations include finalising and funding a detailed National Adaptation Plan, retrofitting at-risk homes to national bushfire standards at an estimated $39,466 per home, providing at least 48 hours of backup power for mobile towers in high-risk areas, investing in early detection and rapid response to remote fires, and building Australia’s own aerial firefighting capability.
Australian Bushfire Management Association (ABMA) members working in fuel and vegetation management will find the report a useful reference when making the economic case for mitigation investment to clients and government.
'Climate change, driven mainly by the burning of coal, oil and gas, is worsening these extreme weather events, including hot days, heatwaves, heavy rainfall, coastal flooding and catastrophic bushfire weather.' Emergency Leaders for Climate Action group stated this week
'The total cost of a bushfire is difficult to measure: how can a dollar figure be put on a lost home full of treasured family photos and keepsakes? Or the loss felt when bushland alive with bird song and cultural significance becomes silent and blackened. Let alone the loss of loved ones, like on Black Saturday 2009 when 173 people’s lives were devastatingly cut short.
Some losses cannot be counted. Those that can be measured are growing.'
''Cutting pollution from coal, oil and gas faster and more deeply worldwide can limit how severe future bushfires become, while greater government investment in preparedness can reduce their cost. Without stronger action, bushfires are projected to cost more than $180 billion over the next 30 years.'' Emergency Leaders for Climate Action stated
The report's Key Findings are:
1. New modelling shows bushfires will cost Australia an average of $6 billion a year over the next 30 years, as climate change drives more frequent major fires.
- The $6 billion bill includes lost homes (17%), damaged businesses and public buildings (20%), harm to health and wellbeing (32%), lost trade (25%) and lost work (6%).
- This is the first national study to show what cutting that damage is worth: making fires a fifth less damaging could protect more than 5,600 jobs every year.
- Insurance data shows bushfire years and events costing more than $500 million in insured losses are already more frequent than 25 years ago.
- The modelling factors in a new era of climate-fuelled disasters, with major fires striking every three to four years as pollution from coal, oil and gas worsens fire weather.
- Actual costs are likely to be higher, as the modelling excludes anything that can’t be accurately quantified such as the loss of wildlife, damage to ecosystems or loss of cultural heritage.
2. Climate pollution has driven a step change in bushfires, making them more ferocious, damaging and costly.
- Deadlier days: Southeast Australia now experiences 14 more days a year of extreme fire weather than before 1998.
- More often: Victoria’s worst fires used to hit once in a generation, or about 40 years apart. Three have struck in the past 18 years.
- Fire storms: Recorded extreme fire-generated storms have risen six-fold, from 20 in 1983–2003 to 121 in 2004–2024.
- Dry lightning: Forests in southeast Australia recorded 50% more dry lightning strikes in 2000–2016 than in the previous two decades, sparking more remote fires.
- Higher losses: Almost half of the 14,000 homes lost to bushfires in Australia since 1901 were destroyed after 2001.
3. The next two summers pose a significant risk to communities, as a hotter climate and strengthening El Niño collide.
- The El Niño underway is tracking as the strongest on record, and comes on top of the highest levels of climate pollution in human history.
- In some high risk areas, insurance premiums have risen by as much as 400% after major fires, and some properties can’t get bushfire cover at all, leaving families exposed when the next fire hits.
- Many people also underestimate the risks: just before the 2026 Victorian fire season, the Country Fire Authority found half the residents in bushfire-prone areas didn’t view bushfires as a threat.
- Inquiries have found face-to-face community engagement through local brigades is highly effective, but faces resourcing challenges.
4. Firefighters are facing longer, fiercer fire seasons with fewer volunteers and less backup across jurisdictions.
- Australia had 10,336 fewer firefighting volunteers in 2023/24 than four years earlier, while paid positions grew by only 433.
- Fire seasons are 21% longer than in 1979, which is shrinking the window available for hazard reduction burning and limiting the ability of states and territories to assist each other during major fires.
- Our fire seasons also increasingly overlap with North America’s. During Black Summer, 11 of the 12 large air tankers Australia used came from overseas.
- Every extra firefighter, aircraft and early warning counts: in NSW during Black Summer, firefighters saved almost six homes for every one lost.
5. Better preparation could save lives and billions of dollars, while cutting climate pollution will limit how bad fires become.
- The same modelling found that the more bushfire damage we prevent through better preparation, the more jobs and income we save.
- Governments can help communities prepare by finalising and funding a detailed National Adaptation Plan, including measures to:
- ensure communities have access to the knowledge and information they need to co-develop solutions to locally identified risks.
- retrofit homes at highest risk to the national bushfire standard, at an estimated average cost of $39,466 per home;
- ensure at least 48 hours of backup power for mobile towers in high-risk areas, so warnings and emergency calls get through;
- invest in early detection and rapid response to stop fires before they get out of control; and
- build a sovereign aerial firefighting capability that reduces our reliance on overseas aircraft, as fire seasons increasingly overlap.
- To help limit how bad fires become, the Australian Government must cut climate pollution from coal, oil and gas further and faster, by:
- strengthening the Safeguard Mechanism, so big polluters can’t use loopholes and offsets to delay pollution cuts;
- stopping approvals of new or expanded coal and gas projects; and
- capping the diesel fuel tax handout to big mining corporations to reinvest the savings in better preparation.
The bushfire modelling used in this report was prepared by ConnellGriffin. Their full technical report is available here. (PDF 12.35MB)
Download the report. (PDF: 2.94MB)
The Australian Greens said the new research from Emergency Leaders for Climate Action lays bare the staggering cost of the climate crisis, with bushfires projected to cost Australia an average of $6 billion a year over the next 30 years.
The next two summers pose a significant risk to communities, as a hotter climate and record El Niño collide.
Labor has approved 37 new coal and gas projects whilst in office.
Australian Greens Assistant Spokesperson for Climate Change and Energy, Senator Steph Hodgins-May, said:
“Labor is staring down the barrel of climate destruction and still approving new coal and gas.
“This government is so captured by the fossil fuel lobby, so beholden to its mates in big coal and gas, that it would rather see this country burn than stand up to corporations’ insatiable appetite for profit.
“Every new fossil fuel project means more homes destroyed, more lives lost, more communities ripped apart and billions of dollars in economic damage.
“Six billion dollars a year in bushfire costs should be a massive wake-up call for any sane government. Instead, Labor is doubling down on coal and gas.
“We’re heading into another dangerous Summer, with a record-breaking El Niño. We need an urgent cessation of new coal and gas approvals, investment to prepare communities for what’s coming, and support for those who will be on the frontline of these incoming disasters.
“Climate change is here, it’s our new reality. But let’s be clear, it’s not inevitable. It’s a political choice.”
Seasonal Bushfire Outlook Summer 2026
Australia's national bushfire outlook is coordinated quarterly by the Australasian Fire and Emergency Service Authorities Council (AFAC) in partnership with the Bureau of Meteorology.
Although they have not released the Seasonal Bushfire Outlook Summer 2026, their Spring Outlook stated fire authorities predicting a heightened risk of fire across northern and south-eastern NSW, south-east Queensland, north-eastern Tasmania, parts of WA, SA and Victoria, and large parts of the NT.
The heavy rainfall and flash flooding across Queensland experienced this past week can paradoxically increase bushfire risks later in the season by accelerating rapid vegetation (grass and scrub) growth. When this heavy growth subsequently dries out under hot summer weather, it creates a larger fuel load for fires heading into December.
The Australian Government National Emergency Management Agency hosted its annual National Preparedness Summit, held in Canberra on 9 and 10 September ahead of the 2026–27 Higher Risk Weather Season.
The two-day event brought more than 300 people from all levels of Australian governments, emergency services organisations, industry and the not-for-profit sector. Their shared goal was to look beyond individual organisations and traditional borders on the map to consider how Australia’s emergency management system can work together most effectively when communities need support.
Australia’s Higher Risk Weather Season typically runs from October to April, bringing an increased risk of bushfires, heatwaves, thunderstorms, flooding and tropical cyclones. Recent emergencies have also shown how disruption can spread quickly across communities, supply chains, essential services and the economy.
Participants also received the latest seasonal outlook from the Bureau of Meteorology, helping organisations consider the conditions and hazards communities may face over the coming months.
A strong El Niño is firmly established. All models, including the Bureau's, forecast the tropical Pacific to continue warming through the southern hemisphere Spring, likely peaking in late Spring or Summer.
The Bureau of Meteorology's Climate Outlook shows Australia's upcoming Summer (November 2026 to February 2027) will feature above-average temperatures and variable rainfall driven by a strong El Niño event.
BoM's Temperature map: Dec 2026 to Feb 2027
Day and night temperatures are very likely (greater than 80% chance) to be above average across most of the country. Unusually high maximum temperatures are most likely (over 70% chance) in eastern New South Wales, eastern Victoria, eastern Tasmania, south-west Western Australia, and Queensland's far north.
Above-average rainfall is likely in large parts of western and central Australia, as well as parts of the east and below-average rainfall is expected in parts of the far north and south-east.
BoM's Rainfall map: Dec 2026 to Feb 2027
The sea surface temperature (SST) analysis for the week ending 18 October 2026 shows waters around most of Australia's west, south and south-east are up to 3°C warmer than average. SSTs to Australia's north-east have cooled to 2 °C below average in some areas.
SSTs in the Australian region are forecast to warm over the coming months, particularly to Australia's west and in the Coral Sea. Warmer waters in the Australian region can enhance atmospheric moisture and energy that can fuel storms and rain systems, increasing potential for high intensity rainfall.
Global SSTs remain at record levels. September 2026 was the warmest September on record at 1.02 °C above the 1961–1990 average. It was also the second warmest month on record overall since 1900.