Family of teenage girl who choked to death on acrid bushfire smoke after desperately reaching for her inhaler issue a plea that all Australians need to hear

The family of an asthmatic teenager who choked to death during Australia's fatal bushfire season have issued a plea ahead of summer.

Courtney Partridge-McLennon, 19, died in bed at her parents' house in Glen Innes, northern New South Wales, during bushfires in the area last November.  

The teenager desperately fought to save her own life by reaching for her medication after suffering a sudden asthma attack in a granny flat, where she was alone. 

The Partridge family are on a mission to spread Courtney's story, in a warning to other Australians that smoke can be just as deadly as the flame itself.   

Courtney Partridge-McLennan , 19, died from an asthma attack last November

The teenager's family are trying to spread awareness about the dangers of bushfire smoke ahead of summer  

'People need to know the risks that not just fire poses, but the smoke too,' Courtney's sister Cheryl Leigh Partridge told 60 Minutes in a segment that will air on Sunday.

'I never in my wildest dreams realised it would be as deadly as it was.'

According to official records, the horrific 2019-20 bushfire season claimed the lives of 33 people.

But more than 400 Australians died 'indirectly' and as a result of smoke inhalation. 

'When you think that that over 400 families are potentially sitting in the same situation that we are, from one bushfire event, I think that's calling itself for something to be different,' Cheryl Leigh said.

Cheryl Leigh, who is working with Asthma Australia to raise awareness, said the conversation needs to start before the next bushfire season.   

Courtney's family gave evidence in June at a New South Wales parliamentary inquiry into the health impacts of the deadly bushfire season. 

The teenager, one of six children, was not a severe asthmatic and had been able to manage the condition her whole life. 

Courtney choked on bushfire smoke surrounding her parents' home in Glen Innes in November 2019

'She was found in her bed with her phone torch on and her reliever medication quite close to her, so she didn't have time to ask for help,' Cheryl Leigh said. 

Cheryl Leigh told the inquiry how Courtney had struggled to overcome the asthma attack brought on by the smoke and that her sister was unaware of the severe danger it posed.  

'We don't have air quality monitoring the same way that metropolitan areas do,'  she said. 

'You can look outside and use common sense and go 'it's pretty smoky out there', but the understanding of what the levels are, if they're hazardous don't exist for regional NSW.

'She was found in her bed with her phone torch on and her reliever medication quite close to her, so she didn't have time to ask for help.' 

Cheryl Leigh called for up-to-date and understandable air quality information to be readily available across all of NSW. 

'It wasn't until after my sister's passing and the South Coast fires kind of took off... where I began to see in the media that people were being recommended to wear P2 masks and to stay inside and activate air filters if they had access to them,' she said.  

Courtney , who had suffered with non-severe asthma all her life, was found in bed with her phone torch on and her reliever medication close to her

The inquiry heard a government campaign was required to provide real-time air quality information to help asthmatics make decisions on what level of protection they needed.   

The bushfires that raged near Glen Innes in November killed three people and left the town covered in thick smoke. 

Air quality in some areas of New South Wales reached such hazardous levels that just being outside became the equivalent of smoking an entire packet of cigarettes.      

Asthma Australia chief executive Michele Goldman told the inquiry that hazardous air quality should be treated with more urgency. 

'We've seen with the coronavirus how we can prepare ourselves and how we can respond to emergencies, 

'We're seeing the intensity and duration of fires increasing, we're now starting to understand the true health impacts of exposure to smoke,' Ms Goldman said.

Ms Goldman called for the development of a uniform approach to measuring and reporting air quality across the country.  

She said: 'We need to ensure that the community both understand the potentially harmful impacts ... and we need to give them the tools to be able to understand what air quality is like at any given time, on any given day in any given jurisdiction, and to have strategies that they can put in place to protect themselves.' 

A fire truck is seen near a bushfire in Nana Glen, near Coffs Harbour, just hours from Courtney's home in November