Fire features prominently in the Australian landscape, from regular backburning to devastating bushfires like the 2019-2020 Black Summer season — an event which impacted most of Australia’s eastern seaboard.

However, new research suggests that Australian bushfires weren’t always like this, with the answer lying in the ways our forests have changed since British colonisation.

2SER spoke to Dr Michela Mariani, Assistant Professor in Physical Geography, and lead author behind the study, to learn more.