This is another picture  of roadside  trees made recently whilst  an early morning poodlewalks  with Kayla along Baum Rd, in Waitpinga. Whilst walking that morning I spotted rabbits darting across the road,  a fox moving quickly across the field, and a couple of  kangaroos in the distance.   

 We woke to the smell of  the fires that morning, the 11th January 2020.    The  blueish smoke haze from the bush fires  hung   along the southern coast of the Fleurieu Peninsula. It was the morning of the day  that saw some light  rain that was part of a south westerly change.   

The south westerly change was after an extremely hot day, in which the north-westerly winds increased  the severity of the  bush fires in the western part of Kangaroo Island. These  started around 20th December during catastrophic conditions. Then there was the epic firestorm that burned out much of the western end of the island (Flinders Chase National Park) on Friday, January 3.   The fire on the 10th of January was less severe, but it did get  to  the edge  of the Island's biggest town, Kingscote and  damaged parts of Vivonne Bay.  The Raptor Domain wildlife park near Seal Bay survived, despite being encircled by flame.

The rain  was  not  enough to put out the fires on Kangaroo Island,  which  continue to smoulder. A third of the island has been charred. The pictures I have seen show  a scorched landscape of scarred trees, ash-coloured earth and animal carcasses.  This  may well mean that some of the plant and animal species … may have been eliminated completely. 

Unfortunately,  is a similar story  in East Gippsland in Victoria and the south coast of NSW. The hot dry conditions and  the  fires are on indication of the new normal  from global heating. These mega  bushfires show what climate heating  would mean in reality, given that we cannot reverse the increased temperatures that have already happened.