AUSTRALIA FIRES AND MISSES

   But although the last couple years have been dry, the last half-century in Australia has been wetter than the previous half-century. Not dryer. Wetter. And a lot wetter.
   Finally, forest management experts have been warning the Australian government over and over again for years that neglecting forest management and giving up on fire hazard reduction burns was piling up fuel in the bush, and that it was only a matter of time and a dry year before catastrophe struck … there’s a particularly strong warning from 2015, and it is far from the only one.
   But nooo … misguided green activists wouldn’t hear of that. They protested the fire hazard reduction burns.
From the comments:   As an Aussie, I live not far from the areas impacted. I have bush walked in many of the areas over many years as a Youth Leader and just with friends. Many of these areas have been locked away for years now and I have watched and worried as the fuel load built up and fuel reduction burns were prevented, cattle that used to graze in some of these areas were locked out (as not natural) and local Councils prevented people from removing trees close to their homes.