Australians struggled to breathe during the Black Summer bushfires. If the smoke comes back, are we any better prepared?

In the national capital, where air quality is generally excellent, smoke carried in from fires in the surrounding regions of NSW saw it plummet to the worst in the world.

The intensity and duration of the haze took many by surprise and shops were quickly stripped bare of masks and air purifiers. 

Dozens of people were admitted to hospital while others sought refuge in air-conditioned shopping centres or shoved damp towels under doors, hoping for some relief.

Researchers estimate smoke contributed to the deaths of more than 400 people around the country.

With another hot, dry period likely to occur again, there are many people thinking about how to better prepare. 

Hospital wasn’t the safe space it should have been during Black Summer

For asthmatics like Eloise Robertson — whose life was effectively put on hold during the Black Summer bushfires of 2019-20 as she struggled to breathe — there’s an extra layer of intensity to those preparations. 

On multiple occasions, she had to be admitted to the local hospital, but Canberra’s intensive care unit wasn’t safe and became flooded with smoke. 

Ms Robertson remembers feeling afraid for her life. 

“[It] set off the fire alarms and no one knew what was happening. Like, they didn’t know if it was a trial or anything like that, so it was such a bit of a shock,” she said.

“And I remember thinking at the time: oh my God, they’re not going to bother with the intensive care people, you know, they’ll get like, the healthier people out, and then maybe come back to us.”

When she wasn’t in hospital, she was in her bedroom — the only room where she could control the air quality with multiple filters and keep her medications well-stocked and close by. 

But the smoke and the isolation took its toll on her mental health, too.

“It was really difficult,” she said.

“Feeling socially isolated and then asking someone to hang out … but [having to say] can it be in my bedroom?”

Asthmatics preparing medication and air filters to avoid hospital admissions

To prepare for this summer, Ms Robertson booked appointments with her specialists and has been busy keeping up to date with the latest air quality data.

Her family also purchased a third air filter for her bedroom and she made plans to increase her medication if it became necessary.

“I’ll be doubling my preventers on particularly bad days and potentially I’ll have to pull up my asthma plan, which includes medicinal steroids like prednisone,” she said.

“Those obviously have other impacts on my health, which aren’t great. So, I try not to do that. But sometimes you can’t help it.

“There’ll be days where I’m definitely going to be closing up and just staying inside.”

Ms Robertson said she was anxious to avoid another hospital admission given what happened last time — despite assurances from Canberra Hospital that it’s in a better position than it was during the Black Summer. 

In a statement, a spokesperson for Canberra Health Services (CHS) said the hospital’s ventilation system has since been upgraded to give it the ability to limit outside air intake when conditions are poor.

CHS said it also had additional air filters ready to deploy.

Experts say remembering what happened last time key to good preparation 

According to experts, Ms Robertson had the right idea to prepare early. 

ANU sociologist Celia Roberts studied the impact of bushfire smoke on the lives of pregnant women and new parents in the Canberra region during the 2019-20 bushfire season.

She said it was vital for people to really think back to what happened last time and think about what they wish they had known then. 

“Your house is really important. A lot of housing in Canberra is old, it’s leaky … so think about gaps under your doors, your air vents, cover them up,” Professor Roberts said. 

“Maybe you want to buy an air purifier. I know they are expensive, but they became very hard to buy in that summer so getting them early is a good idea if you can afford one.”

If keeping the air clean throughout the entire house is too difficult, Ms Robertson said an alternative could be keeping one room smoke-free and staying in there as much as possible.

“Think about where you might go in times of smoke and intense heat … places of safety and cleaner air and cooler air,” she said.

That could be a library, a community club or even a museum or a shopping centre.

Make strategic decisions about mental health versus physical health

But Professor Roberts said it was important people weighed up the mental health impact of staying inside for extended amounts of time with the physical risk of going outside.

“They’re thinking ‘okay, I’m really worried about this smoke. But I really need to go outside for a swim because I’ve got to keep my diabetes under control, or I’ve got to keep my mental health [up],” she said.

“So they were making strategic decisions about what to do.”

Professor Roberts said it was important to recognise that mostly, bushfire smoke was out of the hands of individuals.

“That is a really frightening element of climate crisis … that … at the individual level, it is beyond our control,” she said.

New national air quality warnings recommended 

The Black Summer was the subject of a Royal Commission, which delivered its final report in 2020.

That report recommended nationally consistent air quality warnings be developed around bushfire smoke.

During that summer, the ACT government’s air quality data came under fire for not being updated frequently enough. 

That’s something it says has now been fixed, with data now uploaded once an hour. 

ACT Health’s Swarup Chatterjee said there had also been changes to the way scientists in Canberra reported air quality in order to bring it in line with other jurisdictions. 

There are also plans to give the community better guidance about what poor air quality means for their daily lives. 

ACT Health’s Dr Toby Keene said the air quality monitoring team had better communications ready to go this summer.

“We’ll be able to give people very specific calls to action around what our recommendations are for what they can and shouldn’t be doing as the air quality gets worse,” he said.

“We also have the ability do some predictions about air quality and that will help people plan their lives.”

City better prepared this time around: Environment Minister

ACT Environment Minister Rebecca Vassarotti said she was confident Canberra was now in a better position than it was four years ago.

She said this included having introduced new building standards to ensure new homes could be better sealed from smoke.

But she didn’t have an answer as to whether the government had yet considered rebates to assist people keen to take steps to improve their air quality, such as retrofitting existing homes or purchasing air filters.

It’s also unclear whether one of the government’s main smoke mitigation plans – to have community clubs ready to be used as extreme heat and smoke refuges – will be in operation before this summer.

Although legislation allowing this had been passed, Ms Vassarotti said the government was now “going through the process of identifying clubs that could be part of that program”.

At least one club operator had indicated interest in signing up to the program, the ACT government said. 

Meanwhile, schools. public buildings and employers are encouraged to plan outdoor activities to avoid smoke and have first aid supplies on hand. 

For Ms Robertson, though, and many others, it’s a case of just hoping for the best. 

SOURCE: ABCNEWS