Australia’s Inaugural Extreme Heat Awareness Day: Let’s Recap!

On the 5th of February 2025, Sweltering Cities launched Australia’s first Extreme Heat Awareness Day in partnership with Australian Red Cross. 

Inspired by the international Heat Action Day (that falls during winter in the Southern Hemisphere) the Sweltering Cities team and our partners created a national day of action to mobilise communities and raise awareness about the crisis of rising temperatures.

Here’s a few of the highlights you can read more about below:

• Over 80 organisations participating by sharing heat information in their networks and building heat resilience
• Over 200 people come to our launch webinar (from as far away as San Antonio!) featuring expert speakers, community members sharing their lived experience, and practical guidance for heatwave readiness
• Dozens of MPs across the country using their platforms to share information with their community
• News coverage online and on the radio, including Extreme Heat Awareness Day Abassador and community advocate Angelica Ojinnaka-Psillakis on 702 ABC Sydney
• At least 150 individuls sign up to take action
• 7 Ambassadors speak out about the impacts of heat on their community including Australian Cricketer David Moody
• Events in almost ever state and territory!

This day of action came off the back of 2024 being marked as the hottest year on record, globally. By declaring Australia’s first Extreme Heat Awareness Day, our goal was to reframe heatwaves as disasters, not just another day at the beach. This is important, because extreme heat is responsible for more deaths in Australia than storms, fires, and floods combined. The week that Extreme Heat Awareness Day was launched coincided with heatwave conditions across most of Australia, making it clear to all of us that action on extreme heat is more urgent than ever.

Here are the highlights from Australia’s first Extreme Heat Awareness Day:

Hundreds of organisations across the country signed up and took action, across sectors including local government, health, environment and social services. Organisations participated in various ways, such as sharing social media posts, discussing workplace safety during heatwaves, or hosting community events.

Over 200 people came along to our webinar on the importance of having a national day of action on extreme heat. We were joined by passionate community advocates and engaging speakers from the Red Cross, University of Sydney, and the Western Australian Council of Social Services. You can watch the webinar below!

Seven Extreme Heat Awareness Day ambassadors shared powerful stories about how extreme heat impacts their communities. Our ambassadors were Australian Cricketer David Moody (Cricket for Climate), Community Advocate Angelica Ojinnaka-Psillakis, Organizer and Campaigner Angela Ashley-Chiew, Urbanist Teah Hammet, Dr. Kate Wylie, Community Leader and Advocate Varsha Yajman, along with City of Melbourne Chief Heat Officer Krista Milne.

We took Extreme Heat Awareness Day to Parliament House! Our Executive Director, Emma Bacon, joined the Red Cross in meeting with Federal MPs—including Susan Templeman, Mike Freelander, and Stephen Bates—to secure commitments for government support on community-led disaster resilience and energy-efficient housing.

On social media, posts from us and other organisations and individuals reached tens of thousands of people with posts, videos, stories, actions and more:

Local events were hosted all across the country and Extreme Heat Awareness Day received widespread national media coverage. This included a temperature monitoring workshop and heat panel at the Friends of the Earth Climate Adaptation Fair in Melbourne, as well as a community heat forum in Blacktown.

You can listen to a clip of Ambassador, Angelica Ojinnaka-Psillakis speaking with Hamish Macdonald on ABC Radio Sydney here:

We are so proud of the success of Australia’s first Extreme Heat Awareness Day!

This level of interest and visibility shows just how impactful the day was, and we’re excited to make this important campaign even bigger and more powerful next year.