Just so you know, the Aussies suffer from enviroweenie

morons too. In this case, to the tune of a bunch of people dead because they didn't want people clearing brush and trees around their homes.
ANGRY residents last night accused local authorities of contributing to the bushfire toll by failing to let residents chop down trees and clear up bushland that posed a fire risk.

During question time at a packed community meeting in Arthurs Creek on Melbourne's northern fringe, Warwick Spooner — whose mother Marilyn and brother Damien perished along with their home in the Strathewen blaze — criticised the Nillumbik council for the limitations it placed on residents wanting the council's help or permission to clean up around their properties in preparation for the bushfire season. "We've lost two people in my family because you dickheads won't cut trees down," he said.

Read it all, and think what the atmosphere must have been like in that room. Especially when
There was widespread applause when Nillumbik Mayor Bo Bendtsen said changes were likely to be made about the council's policy surrounding native vegetation.
Don't you just love that word? 'Likely'? As in "We'll think about it, peasants."
But his response was not good enough for Mr Spooner: "It's too late now mate. We've lost families, we've lost people."

Tim Blair once had a piece about the different ways 'mate' could be used to have different meanings; in this case I think it means "You slimy bastard, you're not getting away with this 'likely' bullshit, not now." I hope.

Speaking of Blair, he has a piece noting the size of some of the bushfires in the past, since the globular warmeringers are claiming the current fire proves 'climate change'( the PC term since temps aren't going up like they claimed for so long) is striking:
Contrary to current hyperbole, Black Saturday was not the worst fire day ever. Ash Wednesday’s wind speeds ranged from 70 to 120 km/h. A savage south-west front led to most of the deaths and property loss, whereas Saturday had a modest wind change.

Nor was the area burned in the latest fires exceptional. About 300,000 hectares is the likely total, compared with 1.5 million on Black Friday 1939, several million on Black Thursday 1851, 260,000 on Red Tuesday 1898 and 230,000 on Ash Wednesday. Note that the days of the week have mostly been used up already. Every 10 or 20 years there is a bushfire disaster. This isn’t going to change.

South-eastern Australia is perhaps the worst fire vortex in the world ...
Kind of like Oklahoma is right in the middle of the tornado area. And, up until the last century or so, grass fires in the long-grass prairie were bloody awful; think of dry grass six feet tall running for hundreds of miles with high winds pushing fire... from what I've read the plains tribes feared it more than anything else. For damn good reason. There's more than a hundred dead down under so far. From what I've read they're pretty sure arson was involved; if it is, just what kind of punishment is bad enough?