page_title: 2019–20 Australian bushfire season
section_title: Western Australia
hierarchical_section_title: 2019–20 Australian bushfire season / Regions affected / Western Australia
caption_attribution_description: English: Bushfire in Perth's southern suburbs, seen from Manning Park lookout, Western Australia.
context_page_description: The 2019–20 Australian bushfire season, colloquially known as the Black Summer, was a period of unusually intense bushfires throughout Australia.
  In June 2019 the Queensland Fire and Emergency Service acting director warned of the potential for an early start to the bushfire season which normally starts in August. The warning was based on the Northern Australia bushfire seasonal outlook noting exceptional dry conditions and a lack of soil moisture, combined with early fires in central Queensland. Throughout the summer, hundreds of fires burnt, mainly in the southeast of the country. The major fires peaked during December–January.
  As of 9 March 2020, the fires burnt an estimated 18.6 million hectares, destroyed over 5,900 buildings and killed at least 34 people. Nearly three billion terrestrial vertebrates alone – the vast majority being reptiles – were affected and some endangered species were believed to be driven to extinction. At its peak, air quality dropped to hazardous levels in all southern and eastern states.
context_section_description: Two bushfires burnt in Geraldton on 13 November, damaging homes and small structures.
  A fire broke out in Yanchep at 2:11 pm on 11 December, immediately triggering an emergency warning for Yanchep and Two Rocks. The fire led to a service station exploding. On 12 December, temperatures in excess of 40 °C (104 °F) exacerbated the fire, and the emergency warning area doubled including parts of Guilderton and Brenton Bay further north. On 13 December, increased temperature conditions resulted in the fire burning in excess of 5,000 hectares (12,000 acres), with the fire front over 1.5 kilometres (0.93 mi) in length. As of 13 December 2019, the emergency warning area stretched from Yanchep north to Lancelin over 40 km (25 mi) away. By 16 December, the fire was considered contained and the alert downgraded to watch and act. Approximately 13,000 hectares (32,000 acres) were burnt; only two buildings were damaged, both within the first day of the fire starting.
  In December fires in the region around Norseman blocked access to the Eyre Highway and the Nullarbor and caused the highways of the region to be blocked, so as to prevent any recurrence of the 2007 death of truck drivers on the Great Eastern Highway.
  Between 26 December 2019 and 1 January 2020, as a result of a lightning strike, a fire tore through 40,000 hectares (99,000 acres) of land in Stirling Range National Park in the southwest of the state, burning more than half of the park. The pyrocumulus cloud from the fires could be seen 80 km (50 mi) south in Albany. By New Year's Day 2020 a crew of 200 firefighters brought the fire back to advice level without any loss of life or major property damage (a park ranger hut and hiking tracks were destroyed). However, conservationists raised concerns for the potential loss of rare and unique flora and fauna that live in the park, which contains over 1500 such species within its boundaries, including a rare population of quokkas (one of few in mainland Western Australia). A local politician, firefighters, farmers and tourism operators called on Western Australian Emergency Minister Fran Logan to invest in local firefighting assets for the area to make sure the tourist destination was properly protected.
  The last fire of Western Australian 2019–20 bushfire season started in Lake Clifton, within the Shire of Waroona, on 2 May and was extinguished on 3 May. The Lake Clifton area was severely damaged during the 2010–11 bushfire season.
caption: Smoke from bushfires seen in the sky of Perth in November 2019
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