In Australia...

Bushfire Warning

Although it is now more than half way into Autumn, the fire ban is still going. It had been extended to May 15th at the start of April, so hopefully, now that we're this close to the end, it doesn't get extended again.
Autumn is supposed to be the cooling down month, getting the world ready for winter. So why are we still getting fires in the colder weather? Shouldn't it be the other way around? (I mean, it does, but still!)

People in other countries laugh about how our FDR has only one 'low to moderate' setting, then straight on to 'high', 'very high', 'severe', 'Extreme,' and 'Catastrophic'. But the reason is because we are a dry and arid country with fuck all wetness to stop fires from happening naturally.
You, who live in a moderately weathered country laugh, but we have no choice to have all high settings, because those are the ones we use the most.

Everytime I go into the hills, farmland, or further out, I see the signs on the side of the road and get reminded that I am not that far away either.
I live near the 'edge of civilsation' (at least to city dwellers) and although I have never had immediate threats of bushfires, some of my family and friends have.
Just two weeks past, there was a fire about 20 minutes away, near the suburbs of some of my friends. I could smell the smoke from my house.

One of my uncles and aunts were in the Sampson Flat fires in 2015, and most of their land and sheds were used as kindling for the flames. Luckily, the house itself was saved, by the fire swerving around it and continuing on. Funnily enough, that uncle had been CFS for the past few decades, so he had a lot more experience than most with dealing with fires. And as they live on a huge block of land filled with trees, the fire basically jumped from tree to tree quite quickly in relation to everywhere else. The trees were blackened and leafless, but not destroyed. The flames had just surrounded the outside before continuing on to the next tree, allowing the inside to live. The heat was extraordinary. In the clean up, we found metal tire rims, melted into a puddle of grey. The car that my mechanic cousin was restoring was unrecognisable and couldn't even be used for parts, the outside and inside alike blackened and gutted.

Living near the edge, you get... not quite 'used to' fires, but close to it, seeing the warnings and red, orange and yellow maps on the news and sometimes smelling the smoke and seeing the haze from the closer ones.
But even though I know we are (relatively) safe, there is always that hint of 'Oh shit, what happens if-'.