This is the Friends of History Debating Society. I'm John Batchel to my good colleague, Jeremy Zackison, New South Wales,

an alarming report, but regularly alarming, because Australia is used to bushfires. It is springtime,

and it's very windy. Jeremy, I've put together the bushfires with the destruction of the eucalyptus and the threat to the koalas and all the other creatures of your forest.

And this is bushfire season.

What I hadn't put together is how drought and wind and eucalyptus come together for you in your springtime.

You tell me to look at the headlines in the Guardian.

Fire danger in southern Australia.

Weather Bureau warns of damaging winds.

The winds are usually a result of a firestorm, but what they're saying is the winds are

going to create the fires. Is that it? Hello, Jeremy. Gidey, John. That's exactly right,

and that's the warning we've had all week. Now, what we normally get in spring is we do get

gusty winds, and it does get quite bl blowy here in Australia, especially in the East.

But what we typically don't have is the extremely dry conditions that we're experiencing

right now. And that's been created really by some fairly high temperatures in the western part

of Australia that's blown across the deserts, creating very, very dry conditions here in the

east and creating basically these very hot dry wind,

which you would normally get in summertime,

but we're getting right now in spring.

So what the problem with that is,

is that it can actually create early conditions

where if a small fire were to begin,

which in springtime it does,

...