Not a lot happening - still hot and dry - over 30C most days (2-6C above ave) - but with moderate winds so it's basically a holding pattern. Air quality fluctuates - in 10 minutes it goes from not too bad to New Delhi on a bad day - depending on the wind.

Have previously bemoaned the lack of a projection map for bushfires, such as we have for typhoons, hence my DIY efforts. Turns out there is one - a good one - and other maps as well - but not available to the public! Getting the impression that the State rural fire brigades are 'good ol' boys' clubs. The volunteer firefighters do an incredible job, but not sure about the people at the top who are directing them. They have this irrational hatred of 'greenies' and their thinking is dominated by this 'light it up' mentality with regard to fire season preparation - even when those 'mitigation burns' are right before or even during fire season with no strategy for putting them out.

According to a submission from a fire analyst in a government review of the 2018 QLD fires:

"The terrifying thing is that we’re still fighting these fires strategically with pieces of paper and excel spreadsheets. We seriously need to get systems in place to fix the problem. We need information on the ground feeding into a system; raw data that turns into intel".

The problem appears to be that the state fire brigade, which receives this info, has not been uploading it onto their platform where it can be shared with the analysts who are trying to do the modelling. According to the report this is because they distrust the city-based analysts who they feel are undermining their traditional fiefdoms and "local knowledge" with their fancy-pants modelling.

Below are examples of the mapping that is not available to the public