I listened to an interview with the head of the union for the fire depts in CA and he mentioned that fires have grown progressively worse over the last three years. COVID is playing a major role in all this as well because it had decreased the number of firefighters available.

Yeah even with climate change i would have expected a bad year once every 3-4 years but seems every year is a bad year.

Meanwhile an emerging fire situation near Darwin, NT in the north of Australia, with existing fires and bad conditions coming tomorrow. Darwin is well above the tropic of Capricorn, an area not known for bushfires. I'll wager my farm that the situation is partly caused by farmers/govt agencies burning off too late - August is the windiest month in the north. Might have been ok to burn off in Aug before but it's not now.

Starting to think we're seeing the 'hair-drier affect' - burst of high temps and big wind drying out areas in short time - making them combustible.

Previously the pattern would be wet winter and spring - moderate fire season - with the cooler wetter theme often drifting into summer. The worst fire years were always drought years. Now it seems it doesn't matter as much - you just need a run of couple of hot dry months with increased wind and you're in business.