General News
31 October, 2026
Bushfire sparks a surge in searches
From the devastating Little Desert bushfires to the January 2026 grassfires, the Wimmera has faced significant fire emergencies. Google Trends shows how Australians turn to online searches for information during these events.
Australia is one of the worst-affected countries by bushfires, threatening our land, livestock, and livelihood.
The Wimmera region has a long history of severe bushfires, such as Black Thursday in 1851, Black Saturday in 2009, the Little Desert bushfires in 2025, and the January 2026 grassfires.
Australia search interest in 'Dimboola' has generally remained consistent over the past five years, before a significant spike around January 2025.
Lightning sparked the Little Desert bushfires on Monday, January 27, 2025, and a sudden wind change pushed the fire directly toward Dimboola.
In just one day, the fire burnt over 65,000 hectares.
In all, over 95,000 hectares of land and three structures were lost, including the popular accommodation and function venue, the Little Desert Nature Lodge.
Relative search interest in the topic 'Little Desert National Park' was generally low, with a noticeable increase around the start of 2025.
Search interest in 'fire management' fluctuated over the five years, peaking in 2025 and early 2026, when severe bushfires broke out in Central Victoria and around Natimuk, burning over 400,000 hectares.
A breakout term related to “fire management” is “cultural burning,” which is seeing sporadic spikes in searches.
Cultural burning, also called cool burning, is an ancient, Indigenous-led land management practice that uses small, slow-moving, low-intensity fires to care for Country.
Another trending search term is “fire danger rating,” which peaked significantly in January 2026.
Google Trends data also reveals a substantial increase in Australian searches for 'fire danger rating' around January 2026.
VicEmergency saw a massive increase in January 2026, keeping Victorians up to date with critical emergency alerts.
The VicEmergency App has been downloaded over 5 million times in a state with an estimated resident population of 7.12 million, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
This content is part of a paid partnership with Google to promote Google Trends.