Australia is ON FIRE?? | American reacts to Australia's BIGGEST wildfire 

The most terrifying thing for me was checking in with my 71 year old mother (just recovering from breast cancer) in Port Macquarie, only to be told she’s outside fighting a fire with her 78 year old husband & the local firies…WTF?!! She lived next to a huge reserve, the only thing between her & the fire was a small pond 🤦🏼‍♀️ She later told me she didn’t feel right leaving the firefighters to do all the work. God love that woman, she’s a bloody legend! 😅

I was in the bee's nest bushfire, the first of the fires that summer. We had absolutely no idea what was coming, and we foolishly prepared our property for a light grass fire, expecting it to come across the road in front of our farm, and we would put in out at the road with the help of the local fire brigade. At 6pm on the 6th of Sept, the sky went black and by 8pm it started raining sparks and burning sticks. Within 5 minutes, the world caught fire, I remember the forest behind the house literally exploding into flames because the air was so hot. My family was frantically carrying water around putting out fires that popped up next to house and the sheds. It's still a miracle we survived, and without any help from fire brigades until the fire was well over. They even brought the police with them as they expected us to be dead. The farm has slowly recovered over the years and by some miracle, no one, not even the cows were harmed

It is hard to express how terrible those fires were. It went on for months down the east coast. The sky went black and everything around you appeared red. The smoke was horrible. Sydney was badly affected. Then the anxiety about the people you know near the fires who may lose their homes. Many people did lose their homes. My cousin’s farm caught fire but their house was luckily spared. Less fortunately, the nearby town lost many shops and houses. I’d never before seen fires like this in my life, but sadly I fear this will happen again.

Our ex-PM's response to the bushfires is one of the biggest reasons he was so hated. He literally snuck off to Hawaii for a secret holiday while all of Australia burned. He then had the PM's office LIE about his whereabouts until photos came out proving he was in Hawaii with his Qanon mates, said he'd return early - but didn't. Australian citizens were stranded on beaches surrounded by fires while he was holidaying on a Hawaii beach. And that was just when the fires were initially burning. He said super cringe shit like "I don't hold a hose, mate" when called out on it. The greatest thing to come out of this tragedy was footage of residents of burnt towns shouting at Morrison when he tried to turn up for a photoshoot. Highly recommend you check out "Australia fires: Morrison heckled by bushfire victims - BBC News" which shows it and explains a bit more.

ryan people in new zealand had ash within that smoke falling on their cars and homes thats how bad it was

January 2020 we had the worst bush fires in history. February we had massive floods and March COVID.

I work for the fire brigade in Victoria as a dispatcher. That was definitely a difficult summer. If you're interested in knowing more, look into Black Saturday and Ash Wednesday for some further insight.... 🇦🇺

My uncle and auntie from east gippsland lost their house, property and 3/4 of their livestock. The fire burnt so hot near their place that sand was turning to glass. Their still not allowed to return the surrounding forests because of dangers of falling trees. They've moved in with us in Canberra and plan to return when the land heals up a bit more. It was a terrible time mate.

Terrible memories of that time. Even in the cities there was smoke everywhere for months, it was constantly on everyone’s minds the devastation that was happening around us.

We also had floods after the fires, then Covid hit! We’re pretty tough & look after each other but some folks homes have not yet been replaced!

Fire is a part of the Eucalyptus' life cycle. It is needed to open up their seed pods, as well as clearing out the brush to make way for trees to take hold. That said, those fires were burning way, way too hot for it to serve that purpose and instead just destroyed countless habitats

The sheer devastation brought by these fires was unmatched, to further grasp the carnage caused by the fires I recommend viewing actual footage of the fires and their aftermath. Billions of animals died across the country, 34 people lost their lives and thousands of homes and businesses were destroyed. I live in an area that was basically in the centre of a ring of fire, still years on you see reminders of the devastation daily. 3 American pilots who came over to help fight the fires died in a plane crash whilst on a water bombing mission. The whole community mourned their death, they died trying to save strangers. I believe that they were all parents to young children.

I’m from a region in Victoria called east Gippsland, we were impacted by the 2019/20 fires, and now we have flooded. It’s a cycle. We remain Gippsland strong. I remember the warnings to stay inside away from smoke and thinking “stuff that it’s hotter than hell and the power is out” I went outside, it felt suffocating, went back inside resumed melting.

The white “smoke” rising into the atmosphere, is also the moisture coming from the live trees burning.

This affected almost everyone here. My friends had to run for their lives and fled to the beach. They spent the night on the beach with so many people and their pets…dogs, horses, sheep, and the wildlife, of course. The airborne ash was really worrying. Many of our native plants rely on the heat of a bushfire to regenerate.

Im from Australia and when i saw the title i was scared but then i saw the video i was like oh

As a volunteer firey here in western aus this is pretty hard to watch. The majority of our firefighters are volunteers. Some brigades have to buy their own equipment. I put myself on the list to rotate with eastern states crews but we had too many fires of our own. The boys and girls of our emergency services are the purest embodiment of the Australian spirit. You need help, we come. Anywhere, anyone, any time. We give our all. It's the footage of the boys at the end of the shift that gets me, I've been there - totally physically and emotionally spent, muscles wrecked, lungs and eyes burning.. nothing left and she's still alight. I salute all those who perished, and the boys who answered the call and didn't come home. My greatest fear is burnover and being stuck inside a truck. My skin crawls thinking about it. That's not how I go. I won't be found burned up in a car, i won't. I won't.

The wild fires actually started around the time of my 12th birthday. It was honestly horrible knowing the amount of wildlife and bushland that was being destroyed, along with the massive amount of people trapped in high risk areas. I live further up the coast of Queensland and that area was less affected from the bushfires, but even then the sky was red for days. I still commemorate all the firefighters and emergency personnel, or even anyone that risked their lives to save others.

I was not caught in the fires directly, but I know enough people that were. It still makes me cry because of all the animals that died

We went for months without seeing the blue sky or sun, the days were orange tinted and the nights stank of smoke. Multiple times a day I'd check the bushfire service webpage 'fires near me' keeping track of fire locations and checking with friends if they needed a place to evacuate to. Office building where full of smoke a faint haze brought in by the Air conditioners and it went on for months. you drove with your lights on during the day just to make you more visible. You wondered if we'd loose whole suburbs again and you keep your ears open for the sound of rotors looking up at the sound to see if it was a water bombing chopper indicating the fires were near. There are some plants in Australia that need wild fire to germinate with seed pods that don't open until exposed to the heat of fire. many of our trees are adapted to fire having barks designed to char creating protective layers and special buds just below the surface of the bark that will burst forth.

It was terrifying Ryan but the rescues, civilian, defence and fire fighters were amazing.

I wish kangaroo islands fires were included in that video, the impacts on the land were crazy from what I’ve heard, my Aunty evacuated but had to eventually evacuate the whole island because of how big the fires were

My property was wiped out on New Year’s Eve 2019 and my husband is our RFS captain and faced it. Worst day of my life besides our son had only just passed away before it. Awful times 😭

Proud to say my Son was amongst the many fire-fighters that volunteered their services during that devastating period IN 2019 when more than half the country was on fire . Thank you all for your service. So Brave.

I went to work in Melbourne cbd, and the thick smoke permeated everything around me. It felt apocalyptic at the time, and 2 months later covid hit. It was scary

In New Zealand, where I live, it was like someone had dimmed the sun for days and everything smelled of smoke. Fine ash fell for ages. The sunsets were spectacular.

2019 New Year Eve the fire came close to my house . I was on the roof with a hose watering the burtnt leaves falling from the sky. Bloody scary day and night that was. 😳

It actually started way before Dec 30th, it was more like September through till February all told, when we ended up with so much rain that all the fires went out and we were left flooded....... through the summer you could hardly go outside, people with lung conditions, asthma etc where told to stay inside. You couldnt go bush walking ( fear of death ) you couldn't exercise outside ( lung damage ) .... I ended up in Ulladulla over New Years and we were cut off for 2 days, Highway in and out closed, fires closing in all around, lost electricity and phone signals ( some of us )..... the super market was gutted within a day, with no trucks able to come through, petrol ran dry... it was mayhem, like the end of the world.... a good rehearsal for what followed in March!!! They also said that the ash from Australia changed the colour of the glaciers in New Zealand. To this day, almost 2 years later, there are still natural parts of the south coast that have not recovered / grown / back.

Was working in a bedding store at the time, all that smoke, dust & ash was a NIGHTMARE! Touching a leaf that had fallen from the breeze with my boot on a concrete train station platform while traveling home in the orange darkness....it just fell to ash & cinders...no wonder it spread so far, so fast!

I think every Ausrtalian - including me - was emotionally devastated by these bush fires . It was broadcast on every news channel daily. There's one image that still haunts me: the charred body of a kangaroo entangled in a barbed-wire fence. The poor creature was fleeing for it's life but the fire moved too fast. When I saw that image, I broke down and cried. I couldn't watch the news any more after that. We had bush fires all up and down the East Coast at that time, too. The fires even spread inland to our local rainforest. An estimated 3 billion animals were killed or harmed by the fires, including 60,000 koalas. Human lives and homes were lost as well. Every firefighter who battled the blaze is a hero in my book. Even among all the devastation, there were glimmers of hope: I saw a photo of a frightened koala clinging to a firefighter's leg, it's arm reaching up to hold his hand. I can only hope that our country doesn't have to go through such total devasatation again. But if it does, Aussies will do what we always do when faced with hardship: we'll pull together and support each other.

The fierys... most of them complete volunteers are living hero's. My brother is 1 of them and to him and all Aussie fierys a huge heartfelt thanks for all you do. How u run into the depths of hell willingly is beyond my words

Yep... We went from drought into bushfire season into COVID into floods 😅

It was awful. The town closest to me went up in flames. I would wished someone “all the best” and someone got stuck into me. They said I should be calling for “action”. I could see the flames engulfing the next town and we were packing to evacuate. There was only 1 road into our town and it was blocked. I wanted to throttle that wanker as the embers fell on our house and we were trying to save it, or evacuate to the beach. They were our choices. It was Hell.

28 July 2020 - Nearly three billion animals - mammals, reptiles, birds, and frogs - were killed or displaced by Australia's devastating 2019-20 bushfires. Peace out.

I live on the West Coast.. our hearts were broken with the fire then floods that ravaged the East coast states. We have had towns destroyed by fire here a few summers ago.. it was dreadful

it was quite sad casue my grandmas house burnt down in them

I was super lucky not to be directly caught in the fires, but I know people who were. I remember calling them and checking in with them all the time, asking if they needed a place to evacuate to or just asking if they were doing ok.

A friend and her family were among the people who had to be rescued by the Navy. The pictures of hunreds of people huddled on a beach, under a blood-red sky, with no way out except by sea are horrible. But she said the worst thing was the sound of koalas screaming in the trees as they burned to death.

Summers coming up here I'm not looking forward to the heat🙏🇦🇺

The fires got quite close to my house in the end of December2019-start of 2020

One of my sons who is in the CFA was in the firefighting efforts at Mallacoota. I've never been worried so much about one of my kids as I was then, and damn proud of him at the same time.

I live in Australia in the greater Sydney area. I can honestly say it was horrible. The air was thick with smoke. I live miles and miles away from the fires yet embers and ash along with fog filled the air. Quite literally very hard to breathe. It had actually reached 46•C. Even the freezer sections in the supermarket weren’t cold enough. The beach water was like a warm bath tub. We had water restrictions as well. We’d have to cover our faces to breathe and the air would sting your eyes. I’ll never forget it. Ever. It was worse than those sci fi movies.

That year started off with fires and then floods and then covid . Twas a great year :/

I remember having to sit up all night so I could hit the smoke-alarm shutoff before it went off, every 10minutes or so. Hardwired into my Unit, turning the power off wasn't an option at 90°F. I'm in Canberra.

We had firefighters come and help from the US and Canada 😁 God love em!

Fires are sometime beneficial, we have trees that won't germinate unless there is a fire. And they can be scary. But as a side note most people here in Aus refer to them as bushfires, not wildfires.

That vid didn’t even begin to describe the utter devastation.

We had these bush fires along with a really bad drought, then a few months later we had huge floods, then Covid jumped in.

I was in Moruya roads cut ,water contaminated , no food at Woolworths for 2 weeks . Our former PM thought it'd be a good time to take a holiday in Hawaii , im old enough to remember Ash Wednesday bushfire in 83 i thought that would be the biggest fire id ever see , Ash Wednesday was child's play compared to 2019 . 2019 was the apocalypse

A large percentage of our firefighters are volunteers, so to say they are brave is an understatement, they are heroes. It's just coming into fire season so time will tell how bad it will be this year.

I was living in Brussels when there were an exceptionally high number of fires burning across several states of Australia. My local work colleagues had no concept of their size. I then said “Think of multiple fires burning all the way from Sweden to Spain”! Then they understood…

As an Aussie what also worries me about these fires was that during that fire season of 2019 a fire began in TROPICAL RAINFOREST in far northern Queensland. That situation was unprecedented! The fire burnt in Japoon National Forest for ten days. That is scary!

I had 3 firefronts that I could see from the hill behind my house, all within 10Km. You couldn't go outside and still be able to breathe. Was a crazy time. Checking the fire alerts every time you sat down, got up, made a coffee, anything. Checking on family and friends 10+ times a day.

The smoke was so thick in metro Sydney that building fire alarms were going off from fires hundreds of miles away. An estimated 1 billion animals died. It burned an area around the size of Washington State/South Dakota. It was not a good time

Yeah we had drought from 2017-19 first then the 2019 Black Christmas bushfires then COVID and lockdown from March 2020 to approx Sept Oct 21 and then weve had back to back floods in various regions of NSW since March 2021. People have been in fire or flood recovery mode or unstable employment conditions for nearly 3 years. Its been a tough time for a lot of folk in the eastern states.

There was one documentary with what happened to pregnant woman's babies. They weren't reaching milestones. Midwives were asking if the mother was smoking during pregnancy as the placentas were grey and grainy rather than pink with babies being born tiny.

Its no laughing matter. Hi from Australia- I live in a fire zone -along with most of the population. We've had fires just across from us and in 2019-all around everybody actually- even Sydney had a few spot fires. Plenty of smoke too- it wiped out whole Communities and people have lost lives, livestock and their homes. Love your reactions, Ryan. It's refreshing to see how you see Australia. Catch ya later mayte.

Hey Ryan!!! 7:00 I can see my house from here!! Adelaide is in the top left of the screen, the little green patch on the smaller jutty out bit, with coastline directly North to South haha.. Melbourne is the inverse V bay in the centre and Tasmania is due South (Mostly hidden by clouds).. We have major bushfires every few years.. But this got very close to populated areas.. 41c is 105.8 °F.. In South Australia, we have dry desert heat from the North West deserts. It can be over 31c/88f at MIDNIGHT during Summer. And EVERY ONE of those fire fighters is a volunteer.. Our Country Fire Service/Association in each State.. Absolute heroes..

2 Americans loved there life help fight those fire we had a lot of help from american and Canadian fire fighters whose help was and always appreciated

I lived almost right in the heart of where a lot of these fires were in Gippsland, Victoria and this was by far the scariest and most devastating thing I’ve ever seen. I recommend looking up, “We are Australian - Australia’s bushfires” it’s a slideshow video on YT which shows the massive devastation and is guaranteed to bring out the tears

Happy arvo!!!!

I was on the freeway at Bulladelah on the day of the big Taree fire trying to get to my parents on the mid north coast. The coppers closed the freeway off right in front of me and I had to drive the 6 hours back home. It all worked out fine but I wish I’d managed to get to my folks. They were fine in the end but it was a nasty week of heavy smoke for them. Then we had the same thing in my city.

We also had help from American and Canadian fire fighters, who sacrificed their Christmas with their families to come and help our own fire fighters and to give them some relief, which was a lovely and amazing thing to do

Check out the 2009 Firestorms in Victoria, Over 1000 homes destroyed close to 2000 people burned to death. They were close to our home at the time. But we weren't burnt out. Terrified is an understatement.

Ryan, living in a town in the upper Blue Mountains of NSW, we spent from the end of November 2019, to the beginning of March 2020, watching fires move towards us from both North , West and South.. It was emotionally exhausting for the whole community... and then COVID killed the tourism on which many of our businesses depended.. Still recovering ...

Before, during and after this fires shows the resilience of the Ozzie people. Our area north nsw had floods into drought into fires then floods again, but we survive. So proud to be Australian.

In the heat, Gum trees exude gum oil which surrounds the trees, & explodes when fire comes near!!

I used to live up in the Perth Hills. Bushfires were nearly a yearly occurrence. It’s freaky when the sky is just dark and orange and you hear the Gum trees catching and just go whoosh up in flames from all the oils in them. It’s a very surreal experience. Shoutout to all the Firies. Thank you for your hard work and bravery. 👍🏼❤️🇦🇺

The fire that was at my house in NSW traveled 50 kilometres in 3hrs

I've been in the NSW Rural Fire Service as a volunteer for 40 years and in a Govt fire research organisation. My work was developing a water spray crew protection system for the trucks. It is called the halo system and saved many firefighters in NSW and Victoria during these times. The pictures from inside the fire truck are in my brigade. We were crewing trucks for towards six months straight... Bush Fires, then covid, then repeated worst flooding on record.

We had the Gospers Mountain Fire (the Megafire in NSW) right near our backyard (Near Lithgow NSW). I remember being able to see the flames up on the mountains (from down in the valley) from my backyard. Thankfully by that point this was the most south that fire had travelled, and we only had a couple spot fires that the bucket brigade put out before the RFS came round.

I remember the sky going bright orange one day, it felt really eerie. The closest fire to me at that time was about 10-15kms away.

On 4 Jan 2020 I was on a flight from Melbourne to Canberra that flew through a cumulonimbus flammagenitus cloud. Apparently they create their own weather event that can’t be picked up on a planes radar. Utterly terrifying! We dropped several thousand feed in minutes. While I’m still terrified of flying to this day, It’s nothing compared to those living in small towns along the NSW South Coast. So many people lost everything, and it was estimated THREE BILLION animals died. We will always remember the Black Summer 😞

I've experienced a most of our big bush fires. I used to live in Melbourne when Ash Wendesday happened. That afternoon the smoke came over and late afternoon day went to night almost. I now live in Penrith dase of the Blue Mountains and had some bad fires around the area.

There are Australian native trees / plants that can only propagate during a bushfire. The seed pods only open with extreme heat from a fire.

Beautiful imagery but definiely a trigger for me. These fires were devastating. Over 1 billion little souls lost 😪 And, yes, Covid started right after. Tough couple of years down here.

I was caught smack in the middle of the Ash Wednesday bushfires and on the cusp of the black Saturday bushfires (grew up where they started and lived just down the road) but I was lucky enough to not witness any part of the 2019/20 fires but my heart goes out to all that did.

I remember the 1st of January 2020 what an ominous day. Could taste and feel the smoke in NZ that day. Was crazy. The whole sky was dark all day!

I live on the east coast of Australia. Our house is about 200 metres from the ocean. We were getting blacks raining on us from bush fires that were over 50km away from us. We also had to prepare to evacuate as the fires were creating their own weather patterns and sending fires balls kms ahead of itself, starting spot fire and making new bush fire. It was something I've never seen before at that scale.

The sky in Auckland New Zealand was yellow. It was eerie and we could actually smell eucalyptus smoke for days. Some of our firefighters were over there helping out as they do when needed.

I drove from Queensland to Victoria and back through that bushfire but I also grew up with heaps of the major bush fires I was 10 during black Saturday in 2009 it went through our backyard

I've been through 2 heavy duty fires. When we lived in Yengo National Park outside Sydney. You can't fight a wildfire. Its best to get out and hope your house makes it. Yeah, well both times our house was lucky. Many around us wern't though. The sound of such a fire is like 100 jets taking off. Soles of my boots got melted

Gday. Yes! We had air quality hazard for weeks in January and into February (2020), then Covid (2020-2021), then massive floods beginning of 2022 for most of NSW and SE Qld. Crazy times. You could check out a flood vid from Lismore.

I will never forget the smell. And watching the smoke pall roll on for weeks each evening. My friend lost loved ones.

I live in Sydney & I remember the city & suburbs where covered in a cloud of smoke & there was an eerie black/red tint to the sky for a couple of weeks. There was ash covering all the cars & lawns, I remember seeing burnt leaves flying around the neighbourhood. We couldn't hang our clothes out (even inside) without them smelling of smoke. We had to roll up towels & put them under the doors to try to stop the smoke coming in because my nephew who lives with us has asthma. There were reports of people calling 000 (emergency services) because they could smell the smoke & thought their house or a neighbouring house was on fire. And all of this was just what affected us who weren't in direct danger of the fires coming to our house.

As an Australian it’s really hard to find the words to express the devastation and the fear of it happening again as we enter the new summer season here. It was like a movie apocalyptic world. Smoke, blood sky’s, heat, people losing everything, and the amount of wildlife that died was catastrophic. This is a global issue, it’s a global warming disaster, yes Australia definitely needs to change our fossil fuel industry but the government rarely listens to the people. There are many countries impacting these issues. For example the hole in the ozone layer is above the lower part of Australia and Antarctica which has caused huge issues with drought and skin cancer (a devastating disease here). As we have little protection from the suns UV radiation, and while it is healing the hole was caused by cfcs released into the atmosphere from many many countries, Australia and Antartica paid the price.

The best short video for showing a combo of how extreme they were & the true Aussie spirit combined imo is "Australia bushfires: eyewitness account of the ocean evacuation as Mallacoota burns" from the guardian. & no fires since then (in the east anyway) whole world prayed for rain for us & it hasn't stopped raining/flooding since! Check out the floods too if you want to, whole towns under 50 feet of water from Brisbane to the South Coast

There are still many in our community (and others like ours) who are still suffering the impact of that fire 3 years ago. It truly is amazing to watch a plume of smoke rise up from fires like these and then see a storm cloud rise up even higher from out of the smoke. Not surprising really if you consider that the moisture from the burning vegetation has to go somewhere, just like moisture in general. It is really an awesome sight, even if scary and deadly.

I live in the NT which is known by Aussies "The Top End". Wet season up here is madness but beautiful at the same time. Top Ender's wish to share our rain n times like this 😥🙏🌼

You will be pleased to know that Australia is forecast to have another La Nina spring/summer season for the third time in a row. La Niña events increase the chances of above-average rainfall for northern and eastern Australia during spring and summer. The severe drought which gripped much of the country at the time of the bush fires occurred during a very long period of weather dominated by El Nino. This came to an end a few years ago. The transformation from El Nino to La Nina has been profound and has changed the landscape, where heavy and regular rainfall has turned it green once again. This has been a Godsend not just to humans, in particula the agricultural sector, but it has helped vegetation and wildlife populations to recover. This cycle is a typical of weather in Australia but with climate change brought about by global warming, the cycles have changed as well. We rarely get three La Ninas in a row. In fact, it has only happened twice since 1900!

It was harrowing. I was living in North East Victoria in the King Valley. My Boss said to me "no fuck off and go home, grab whatever shit you need and leave". People in the country tend to know someone who knows more than the authorities, always. I was about 15ks from work to home. I was throwing important stuff in my car and got the call to evacuate immediately. My brother and his family live in the Tallangatta Valley which is further north. They were also evacuated and for days we all stayed at Mum's house monitoring what was happening, and realising there was always someone worse off than ourselves. My brother and his family had bought our family home in the Tallangatta Valley. Dad's ashes were scattered and his plaque was there on his favourite tree. One wind shift and that home was gone. In true Aussie fashion we all got plastered and joked about how Dad would piss himself laughing if he got cremated twice. It's indescribable how to paint what those days were like. Day was like night with with an atomic orange hue. We all survived, as did our houses. So many didn't and it humbles you to think how close you came to losing everything.

Those fires were indescribably horrifying

We were in Lithgo holidaying when the bushfires hit the area. Spent Christmas Day getting prepared to evacuate. The fires were burning the hills around us. Got home to Queensland safely.

This was the most concerned I, in New Zealand, ever was for Australia. The sky was red here for days. It was like a light red fog. And it was the smoke from wildfires in a country thousands of kilometres away. It'd be like the skies in southern Canada turning red from the smoke of fires in Mexico.

I live in Bathurst, 200 kilometres west from Sydney, during these bushfires we didn't see blue sky for about a month, the whole town was smoked out but fortunately no fires close to Bathurst.

The view at 2:10 is the open plains and mountains (called The Brothers) where I live. How cool is that. To the right of the road are mountains called The Sisters. There is a tiny town called Benambra at the base of The Brothers. We were cut off in all directions due to the fires, and lots of farms were impacted here, as with everywhere else around us in east Gippsland.

The fire's here was so devastating we had fire's all around us where I live I truely thought we were all going to die

This, Covid and throw in a few floods in certain affected areas as well, and yeah, nothing much to smile about for a lot of people who STILL find themselves trying to recover :(

No one ever tells you how LOUD fires are. The noise is incredible and it really is a beast - it roars, it screams whole trees explode so it can be a bit worrying.

2009, Black Saturday here in Victoria! We felt the hell on earth dry 43 deg Cel. And hot north wind in our outer eastern suburbs.