Hi Beachgal,
Before we go into the bush fire topic, I would like to bring up
a common misconception among Singaporeans regarding
Melbourne. Whenever the name Melbourne is mentioned, most
Singaporeans think that Melbourne is a state in
Australia.
In fact Melbourne is a only a surburb and is the capital city of
Victoria. There are many other suburbs in Victoria which covers
a very large area - almost the same size as United
Kingdom.
Coming back to the bush fire topic, most of the bush fires in
happen in surburbs very far away from the city of Melbourne. To
give you a context of the distance, it would be like saying, how is
Singapore affected if there are forest fires in Ipoh or Malacca. So
generally Melbourne is uneffected by bush fires except for hazy
skies.
You will be surprised to learn that bush fires happen every year
in Victoria during summer. It is a so common that normally it is a
non event and Melburnians get used to it. Once in a while, you get
really big fires like the recent ones that killed a lot of people.
This is rare and when it happens, there is a lot of media coverage.
This recent bush fires is the worst in the history of bush fires in
Victoria.