Thread by @itsnotfairman

I've been thinking a bit about the East Gippsland fires and how they compare to fire extent over the last 70 years. So I mapped them. Thread!

I grouped all fires per decade and excluded fires under 1000 ha to simplify the maps. I also excluded planned burns. No maps of fire are perfect so read them as indicative estimates. So - The 1950s:

All fires in the 1960s:

The 1970s:

All bushfires in 1980s. Ash Wednesday the major fire area here.

1990s. I think the 90s in SE Aus was generally wet and cool - calm before the millenium drought.

2000s. The huge 2003 and 2006/7 Alpine fires are visible but didn't badly impact East Gippsland.

The 2010s. The 2014 fires were the largest and major fire of this time.

And how the 2010s were capped off - red is the extent of the fires that burned from late Nov 2019 and blew up at the end of December. I've spent a lot of time thinking about fire and these ones blow my mind.

Sourced this data from publicly available fire history data from data.vic. Dec 2019 fire extent current as at 1 Jan 2020.

Also worth saying - I cannot imagine how difficult these fires are for the people of East Gippsland and the people fighting them. Truly a hellish season for that part of the state.