In early January of 2020, bushfire season was just beginning in Australia. But this isn’t like other years. Unusual weather patterns and little to no rain caused the fires to grow out of control. Over 27.2 million acres of land was engulfed in flames. Many people had to evacuate their homes, and many acres of wildlife homes were destroyed as well. 

Starting in December of 2019, huge bushfires broke out across the country of Australia. Bushfires are a normal occurrence that time of the year in Australia, but this year was much worse. During 2019, Australia experienced long periods of drought accompanied with sweltering heat. This caused much of the vegetation to dry up. And dry vegetation burns easily. So when the normal fire season in Australia started in July of 2019, it became a lot worse than past years.(CNN)

Many people across Australia had to leave their homes. It is estimated that over 240,000 people had to evacuate to escape the blazing fires. These evacuations happened all over the country in many of the major population centers. (CSNBC) These fires also caused catastrophic damage to the local ecosystems all across Australia. Sadly, many animals that make up the diverse ecosystem of Australia lost their lives. Some species of animals may have even lost 100% of their habitat. 

All across the world, people raised money to help Australia during those devastating times. Over 500 billion dollars were raised. This money helped the people and the ecosystems of Australia recuperate after the fires. Because of these fires, Australia has put more money into their disaster fund to help with anything that could arise. They are more prepared this time to try to contain a fire before it gets out of control like the fires did in 2020.