I live in the capital city of Aus., Canberra (no... not Sydney OR Melbourne) and we had a fire go through Jan 18 2003 that killed two people, burnt out 465 houses and all our forrests. The pine forrest will never grow back but the gums love fire. They come back all lush and green really quickly. Animals don't fair to well though. They were fighting it for weeks before it hit and days afterwards. The cinders and ash falling and the helicoppters going overhead night and day was incredible, like we were in a war zone.

Some people still haven't rebuilt so there's still these huge empty rivers of land running through some suburbs.

Weird though, we used to be called the 'Bush Capital' and people lived here because of all the bush and open spaces, now they can't cut down all the trees fast enough. Guess fire can freak people out. They are pretty scary; nature flexing its' muscle which is terrifying 'cause nature really doesn't care who you are annd sympathy is not in its nature.