Fire recovery 'to cost $16 billion a year'

Scientists say $16b will only partly restore the environmental damage done by the Black Summer fires (Dan Himbrechts/AAP PHOTOS) (AAP)

It will cost $16 billion a year to partially restore the environmental damage done by the Black Summer bushfires, scientists say.

Researchers from the University of Queensland and WWF-Australia have published the results of a complex number-crunching exercise sparked by the catastrophe.