The film discusses previous bushfire seasons in Australia and compares those to the 2019–2020 fires from the perspective of firefighters, residents and the Australian people. Burning notes that the 2019 Amazon rainforest wildfires burned 2.2 million acres, the 2020 California wildfires burned 4.4 million acres, while the Australian Black Summer fires of 2019–2020 burned 59 million acres.