Calgary Arson Misinformation Undermines Link Between Australia Fires And Climate Change | HuffPost News - Action.News ABC Action News WestNet-HD Weather Traffic

Multiple Australian state police agencies have found limited evidence to suggest the major destructive bushfires in their states were ignited by arsonists, contradicting the international onslaught of misinformation suggesting otherwise.

A misleading figure shared by conservative media, apparent bots and trolls , and public figures including Donald Trump Jr . and veteran Fox News host Sean Hannity suggests that 183, or nearly 200 arsonists have been arrested this bushfire season.

The Australian newspaper first reported 180 alleged arsonists were arrested since the start of the bushfire season in September but subsequently updated the story to reflect that these statistics were, in fact, covering the entirety of 2019. Trump Jr. and Hannity, among others, spread the initial inaccurate statistic.

Truly Disgusting that people would do this! God Bless Australia.
More than 180 alleged arsonists have been arrested since the start of the bushfire season, with 29 blazes deliberately lit in the Shoalhaven region of southeast NSW in just three months. https://t.co/xP0PtMQbuD

Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) January 7, 2020","type":"rich","meta":{"author":"Donald Trump Jr.","author_url":"https://twitter.com/DonaldJTrumpJr","cache_age":86400,"description":"Truly Disgusting that people would do this! 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Truly Disgusting that people would do this! God Bless Australia.
More than 180 alleged arsonists have been arrested since the start of the bushfire season, with 29 blazes deliberately lit in the Shoalhaven region of southeast NSW in just three months. https://t.co/xP0PtMQbuD
Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) January 7, 2020

Though a handful of fires have been ignited by arsonists, authorities including the Victorian fire chief have confirmed that the majority of the largest blazes were ignited by dry lightning, not arson.

Dale Dominey-Howes, a professor of hazard and disaster risk sciences at the University of Sydney, told HuffPost there was a link between climate change and both the ignition and exacerbation of the bushfires.

The majority of these bushfires have been generated by lightning strikes associated with weather and climate effects. Weather and climate are dominated by processes that are affected by climate change. So there is a link between climate change and the triggering or the starting of these fires, Dominey-Howes said.

And even when a fire is ignited by human activity, climate still plays a major role in how much fuel is available for the fire and the conditions that worsen the blazes.

And then theyve been much worse because were in a particularly bad period of drought, said Dominey-Howes. Very dry, hot weather, all of which are the conditions that favor the spread of bushfires.

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