NightOwl, we are fortunate as the nearest big fire is 100 km away and we aren't surrounded by forest. Australia has had worse bushfires in the past but each event is tragic. When humans first arrived here over 50000 years ago the predominant trees were Acacias but human created fires for hunting purposes led to eucalypt trees taking over from acasias as eucalypts recover faster after being burnt. But they are more likely to catch fire. We need to do a lot more about reducing ground fuel load in our National Parks. Poor policy in the past has ignored this and fires have spread out of control.