Chapter 6

Out of the fires and into the pandemic

Australia’s initial success in shutting out the novel coronavirus was facilitated by low rates of international visitors, due to the unprecedented bushfire season called the Black Summer. The 2019–2020 bushfires did more than keep travelers away, however. These fires also influenced the metaphors that politicians and reporters used to describe the COVID-19 pandemic. This chapter discusses the effects of the Australian bushfires on COVID-19 metaphors from two perspectives. First, a quantitative study suggests that in Australia, words such as fire and bushfire followed different patterns of usage in reference to the coronavirus than in other English-speaking countries. Second, a qualitative study compares fire metaphors in the Australian news with international examples as analyzed by Semino (2020), and finds that Australians’ fire metaphors demonstrate an understanding of technical firefighting terms, and a unique history of collaborative firefighting, not apparent in metaphors from other countries. These studies suggest that the Australian bushfires shaped the way that Australians described the new viral threat that arrived while the bushfires were still at their height.