About this Event

As Australia enters an a new El Nino summer, fear of bushfires is rising in many communities. Some are already battling blazes.

It is at this timely moment that Melbourne University Press and Melbourne Climate Futures invite you to the launch of The Fires Next Time: Understanding Australia’s Black Summer.

Join the book’s editor, Associate Professor Peter Christoff, and contributors to discuss the revealing analysis of Australia’s most extreme bushfire season. Unpack the lessons and begin to understand what we can do to prevent another black summer.

The panel will include:

Dr Michael Grose, CSIRO Climate Science Centre, and lead author of the chapter n climate science
Greg Mullins, former NSW Commissioner of Fire and Rescue, and author of the chapter on fire fighting responses
Dr Libby Rumpff, Senior Research Fellow, School of Agriculture, Food and Ecosystems, UoM, and lead author of the biodiversity chapter

Refreshments will be provided. Registration is essential by 27 November.

About the book:

Following a three-year drought and during the hottest and driest year on record, a flume of scorching air set the Australian continent aflame. The Black Summer fires were unprecedented. Over six months in 2019–20 they burned more than 24 million hectares of Australia's southern and eastern forests – one of the largest areas burnt anywhere on Earth in a single event. The fires killed 33 people and 430 more died as an indirect consequence and they caused unfathomable harm to native species. Their economic ramifications were extensive and enduring. State and federal governments and communities were under-prepared for that inferno and its many impacts. Yet global warming is increasing the likelihood of such events. The Fires Next Time offers a comprehensive assessment of the Black Summer fires. Its contributors analyse the event from many vantage points and disciplines – historical, climate scientific, ecological, economic, and political. They assess its impacts…

About the editor:

Associate Professor Peter Christoff is a political scientist, a senior research fellow with the Melbourne Climate Futures Initiative, and an honorary associate professor with the School of Geography, Atmospheric and Earth Sciences at the University of Melbourne. His books include Globalisation and the Environment (co-authored with Robyn Eckersley) and Four Degrees of Global Warming: Australia in a Hot World.