In the past decade, numerous shocking climate-related events such as flooding, hurricanes and tsunamis have made us aware that our planet is in a dire state; but in 2019, more of us began to realise that (to paraphrase Greta Thunberg) our house is literally on fire. We watched, aghast, as the Amazon rainforest – the precious ‘lungs of the earth’ – blazed, and when thousands of homes in California were destroyed by wildfire. With all of these heart-rending stories endlessly on the news, we could only hope that the world would soon find some relief. Instead, it turned out that Australia was next in line.
The fires in Australia began in November 2019. Yet, although wildfires (or bushfires) occur in Australia every year during their summer season (December to February), this time they had started early – in September.