Tech

The Download: how AI could change politics, and lifting the lid on Facebook

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on


April 2019

Australia’s colonial history is dotted with fires so enormous they have their own names. The worst, Black Saturday, struck the state of Victoria on February 7, 2009. Fifteen separate fires scorched the state over just two days, killing 173 people.

While Australia is notorious for spectacular blazes, it actually ranks below the United States, Indonesia, Canada, Portugal, and Spain when it comes to the economic damage caused by wildfires over the past century.

That’s because while other nations argue about the best way to tackle the issue, the horrors of Black Saturday led Australia to drastically change its response—one of the biggest of which was also one of the most basic: taking another look at the way fire risk is rated. Read the full story.

—Bianca Nogrady

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