Australia’s inaugural National Disaster Preparedness Summit wrapped up last week in Canberra as the country gets ready for the bushfire season, one that has been forecasted to be more fiery than the last few years because of El Nino.

Some 250 crisis management, response and recovery specialists from governments, industry, community and the not-for-profit sector attended the two-day event convened by the National Emergency Management Agency on September 25-26. 

“I think the key takeaways were that there’s a lot of enthusiasm right across the community for making sure that we are much better prepared for the disaster season that we face,” Federal Minister for Emergency Management Murray Watt said after the first day of the summit. 

“There is no doubt that we’re going to be facing bushfires and we need to be as ready as possible for them…I think it's been really productive to have government, industry and community all on the same page, all with a shared understanding of the risks that we're facing this year. 

“And today, there's a hypothetical scenario being put to everyone at that summit to basically put everyone through our paces and make sure that we're ready and identify any gaps that might remain.” 

Australia faces possibly its worst bushfire season since the 2019/20 Black Summer after the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) declared an El Nino is under way. 

Another climate event is also occurring at the same time, increasing the chances of an above-average hot and dry spring. The Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) is in a positive phase, raising the likelihood of heat and drought over the coming months. 

A positive IOD often result in less rainfall and higher than normal temperatures over parts of Australia, the BOM says.