The summer holidays on the southern coast of the Fleurieu Peninsula, which are associated with childhood vacations and dreams, ended with the Australian Day long weekend. Suddenly the summer holiday crowds thinned–apart from the boaties hunting the blue fin tuna. The fun fair has packed up and gone until the school holidays,
The brief period of cooler days that we experienced has also gone with the return of the hot weather, with its temperatures around 40 degrees and northwesterly winds. These are conditions that generate the “fire flume,” as historian Stephen Pyne calls the hot northerly winds that sweep scorching air from inland Australia into the forested ranges of Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania. Australia was burning.
Hopefully, the fires still burning on Kangaroo Island, the Adelaide Hills and the Orroral Valley fire south of Canberra do not to flare up into mega-fires , which mean that the very question of the habitability of Australia now stares us in the face. Will these fires be a tipping point amongst the general public?