Scorched-Earth Urbanism: Rebuilding After the Australian Bushfires
Photo: Jo-Anne McArthur
scorched-earth, noun
/ˌskɔːtʃtˈɜːθ /
the act of destroying everything in an area that could be useful to an enemy.
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Almost a year after the largest fires in Australian history, homes lost in the disaster have started reconstruction. The fires — which saw 3,000 houses destroyed across the country, 2,400 of which were in New South Wales (NSW) — have laid bare the inadequacies of the Australian government’s climate action and bushfire resilience strategies. Scientists warn us that climate change will exacerbate bushfire conditions, making similar events more extreme and frequent in the future. In this light, NSW has a critical window of opportunity to reconstruct urban systems from scorched earth, which could herald a new approach to resilience against the interconnected crises of climate change and bushfires.
The urban environment has a large stake in Australia’s climate performance, with 86% of the nation’s population located in carbon-intensive suburban and exurban parts of its cities. Given that the residential sector is responsible for 20% of Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions, reductions of household emissions alongside city densification are an essential lever for climate reparation. In spite of this, most dwellings are built to minimum energy standards, both increasing electricity costs for residents and negatively impacting the environment. With pressure mounting on Australia to implement policies to reach the targets laid out by the Paris Agreement, the sustainable design of new construction should be active in the decarbonisation of Australia’s cities and towns.
In its most populous city, Sydney, tourists crowd to witness the Harbour Bridge and the Sydney Opera House. Last year, the harbour icons were barely visible through an apocalyptic red haze; the city’s ‘green lungs’ - national parks on its outskirts - burned during the fires, the smoke suffocating its residents. Most of Sydney’s population growth occurs in the low-density suburbs, which sprawl out to its national parks and bushlands. Not only more susceptible to bushfires, residents on the suburban edge are also more dependent on private vehicles to traverse the city, causing air pollution, straining city services and contributing to the ballooning of per capita emissions. In order to minimise the urban domain’s impact on Sydney’s climate targets, the city needs to densify rather than expand. The benefits are twofold: these measures will reduce Sydney’s carbon emissions and the bushfire risk for its newest communities.
With residential areas razed and their resources charred following the 2019-20 bushfires, the actions of the state and local governments will be foundational to the recovery of NSW. However there still isn't a unifying plan to rebuild these communities to abate both the climate and bushfire crises. In the recent fires, buildings on land which was not classified as bushfire prone were still burnt down, indicating classifications aren’t adapted to the severity of recent bushfire events. Older homes built on less stringent, earlier standards, could also be at a higher risk of bushfire damage. Furthermore, in spite of the damage incurred in 2019-20, NSW’s primary planning and environmental legislation, The Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979, still allows housing to be built in extremely high bushfire risk areas. Planners have the opportunity to reduce the devastation of future disasters by creating a strategy for the upgrading of housing to newer fire standards, providing humane relocation for residents in extreme cases and limiting new construction on high-risk land.
The bushfires have revealed the precariousness of planning compliance in guaranteeing the safety of homes. The nature of bushfire risk factors is not momentary, as opposed to the obtainment of compliance. Features of a property that change with time — such as garden cover, and the maintenance of properties — can impact a building’s fire risk and, therefore, must be approved on a rolling basis by local planners. This ongoing approval must be coupled with a broader planning approach to understand risks and resilience across streets, towns and in between towns. To combat the totality of the bushfires, the planning system in high-risk areas should adopt a more dynamic approach to reducing the risks to residents.
The rebuilding of scorched-earth towns has exposed the needs for local, state, federal and industry cooperation to recreate stronger, more sustainable communities. Local councils have received a $1 million payment from the federal government to aid with the recovery. While communities and their leaders can decide how they rebuild with federal and state funds, insurance companies drive the timing and nature of residential reconstruction.
South of Sydney, in the Bega Valley, bushfire victims face homelessness and little insurance a year after the disaster. With lengthy design, approval and construction times ahead of them, residents there have opted to rebuild unconventional fire resistant and sustainable houses. Modular architecture is able to provide a quicker, greener recovery for residents eager to return to a home. Victorian construction firm, Atomic 6, has streamlined the planning process, with the ability to construct modular houses in two weeks. The houses are off-grid, powered by solar cladding, and have self-contained water catchment and recycling systems. They’re also made using fire-resistant materials and can include heat-sensing sprinklers and window shutters.
However, the widespread adoption of modular homes for disaster relief may negatively impact the cultural identity of communities like Bega. Previously characterised by heritage cottages and homes constructed across multiple generations, relying on modular architecture as a long-term solution for rebuilding towns could look homogeneous and feel temporary. While housing must be sustainable and fire-resistant, it shouldn’t compromise local character. To allow for this, insurance schemes must be flexible to accommodate timelines in rebuilding the residential sector, which are tailored to the needs of individuals.
In Bega, the onus falls on the individual landowner to reconstruct homes that combat climate change and mitigate against bushfires. Rebuilding will continue into the future, but requires commitment across levels of government to ensure scorched-earth urbanism, which is responsive to Australia’s long-term wellbeing. These initial years of disaster recovery must embed resilience into communities while ensuring cities are not exacerbating the factors that led to their destruction.
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Kate Field is an Oceania Coordinator at Oxford Urbanists. She holds a Bachelor of Architecture and Environments from the University of Sydney and is based in London.
Michelle Tjondro is a strategy consultant supporting regional development policy for Australian state government. She is passionate about the science of cities and has also published in the Journal of World Languages.