I'm reading that last question as irony, experience suggests others will read it as an un-ironic rhetorical question. So while recognising, what I believe is y

I'm reading that last question as irony, experience suggests others will read it as an un-ironic rhetorical question. So while recognising, what I believe is you're ironic phrasing, I'm addressing what I think will be the un-ironic reading others will take, you good with that. Yes fire is a normal part of Australian ecosystems, and it is unknown whether this spread with Eucalyptus trees or whether Eucalyptus trees spread with humans using fire. But : The Australian climate is getting hotter: http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/current/month/aus/summary.shtml http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/current/month/aus/summary.shtm... 'The national December mean temperature, 3.21 °C above average, surpassed the previous December record set in 2018 by more than a full degree.' British conquest and subsequent settlement has ended traditional indigenous fire practices in most part of the country. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire-stick_farming https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire-stick_farming Which means that the fuel load are not reduced by smaller cooler burns below levels that would feed a catastrophic fires. https://www.science.org.au/curious/earth-environment/bushfires-managing-landscapes https://www.science.org.au/curious/earth-environment/bushfir... Partisan politics has made it very difficult for many Australians to look directly at these topics. So while fire, is a terrifying but not unexpected feature of living in Australia, the scale of this year's fires are a unique horror that I believe will push enough Australians to engage with that difficulty. I think we are going to see fast significant shifts in political discussion from this, that both the emotive calls to action, and populist denials or diminishment will we perceived as a distraction from direct sober engagement of an existential threat. ( As I first typed this I accidentally capitalised that as Australian Ecosystems, because I once worked for a company by that name that did environmental work, including controlled burning)