Skip to main content
This media resource contains images of natural disaster.

Catalyst: What is a megafire?

Posted 
Space to play or pause, M to mute, left and right arrows to seek, up and down arrows for volume.
A huge plume of bushfire smoke
Catalyst: What is a megafire?

SUBJECTS:  Geography, Science

YEARS:  5–6, 7–8, 9–10


What is a megafire? And how is a megafire different from a regular wildfire?

Join Catalyst reporter Anja Taylor as she visits the Jemez Mountains in New Mexico and discovers the impacts of recent megafires on the landscape there.

How have recent fires permanently transformed the landscapes that Anja and Professor Craig Allen visit?

The maps that Craig shows Anja reveal an acceleration in the size and severity of fires in the Valles Caldera since 1909. Anja gives other examples of recent record breaking fires around the world. Why do you think ferocious fires are becoming more frequent?



Date of broadcast: 6 Mar 2014


Copyright

Metadata © Australian Broadcasting Corporation and Education Services Australia Ltd 2012 (except where otherwise indicated). Digital content © Australian Broadcasting Corporation (except where otherwise indicated). Video © Australian Broadcasting Corporation (except where otherwise indicated). All images copyright their respective owners. Text © Australian Broadcasting Corporation and Education Services Australia is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-SA 4.0).

Posted