Bushfires

I was reading about someone who went through a bushfire.  It got me thinking about fires.  Thankfully I have never been through a bushfire with the possibility of loosing the house and possessions or my life, but I have been up close and personal with a couple.
I am not proud of it, but as a kid I started one once.  It was in Townsville and we lived adjoining Castle Hill.  Beyond our place was bush land.  I was playing with matches and the fire got away from me.  There weas no loss of life or property but I do remember finding mum and asking if I could go play with a mate down the road.
She said no and I watched that fire.  Fair dinkum I did not know flames could move so fast.  The fire brigade came.  Three times actually as the fire got into a large bamboo clump and kept on restarting.
Another time as a kid I was under the house (goodness knows what made me crawl under there as it was only about 2 foot high).   I started a fire and although it was decades ago I remember the realization of the implications.  I put it out and went and did something else.
I have a property that adjusts bushland in Burpengary and I watch that one closely when there is fire about.  The Bushland has been called a Koala Park.  I have no idea how it got that name as I have never seen a Koala there.   I have seen horses and did a double or triple take when I saw a lamb there.  But never a Koala.
Since I no longer live there, I have gone down the road to track the progress of a fire nearby.
Also many years ago I have been driving through the adjoining suburbs and been surrounded by fire.
On another property I had in Burpengary I obtained all the permissions to have a burn off.  The day I had scheduled it too happen was too windy, so I waited a few days.  It was a big area, and I knew there was a car buried there somewhere.  A mate warned me that sometimes petrol tanks explode.  I was behind a fence with a hose and sure enough it exploded.
Probably the scariest moment I ever had with fire is when a gas tank started to shoot vertical flames.  I raced around to put it out.  It did not help that someone was standing next to it all agog.  I do not know if I needed to be scared but I know I was.
Merril was in a bus going across the Nullarbor on Ash Wednesday.  She says the temperature was like an oven.
There seems to be more fires about these days but thankfully none have touched me.