No one knows more about the history and ecology of fire than Stephen Pyne. "Australia," he writes today, "is a fire continent: it is built to burn.
To this general combustibility its southeast corner adds a pattern of seasonal winds, associated with cold fronts, that draft scorching, unstable air from the interior across whatever flame lies on the land. At such times the region becomes a colossal channel that fans flames which, for scale and savagery, have no equal on earth.
Still, even Pyne calls Saturday's fires a "horror." And that speaks volumes. As he notes, "Australia has filled the weekly calendar with Red Tuesdays, Ash Wednesdays, Black Thursdays, and is having to re-number its sequals. There was a black Saturday on February 12, 1977, but Black Saturday II is a bad bushfire on steroids." Pyne's essay should be required reading for people living in flammable landscapes and especially for ...
