Smelbourne

It's bushfire season in Australia once more. This means total, total fireban basically everyday. My students are convinced that the fireban is my fault because I'm a smoker. This also means a whole lot of death and devastation over a prolonged period. They've already called in volunteer firefighters from New Zealand and will probably need to get volunteers from America and Canada shortly. And no, I'm actually not joking. We really do have such bad bushfires here that we require help from other countries.

So the fires have been burning for a couple of weeks now and the photo above is a direct result. And it's not just up high either. Last weekend, and again today you can see the haze right in front of you. Taste and smell the burning ("It tastes like burning"). And it really does smell and taste. It's completely messed up. We have bad bushfires every year but I've never seen anything like this. Makes me wonder what's next to come. The whole Earth's environment seems to be utterly out of whack over the last couple of years (and no, I'm not blaming bushfires on global warming, just making an observation).