After a sweltering night, the state’s residents awoke to warnings of extreme danger all the firefighting bodies were on standby. Any moisture in the air had evaporated humidity was below five per cent. A high-pressure system had settled over the Tasman Sea, bringing temperatures in the mid-forties, the highest recorded since records began in 1859. On 7 February 2009, the weather in Victoria was not friendly. Fascinated by its mythic force, we talk about taming a fire as we talk about taming a beast, but when it comes to vast tracts of bush, we can only contain it and wait for another natural force, the weather, to extinguish the flames. The language we use to describe fire, Chloe Hooper points out, gives it a creaturely shape: it has flanks, tongues, fingers, a tail.
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