Today the weather icon showed something I was used to seeing in Aberdeen all the time: the mist icon. Doesn’t get misty here though, so I hovered the mouse over it to find:

Australian mist = smoke

Smoke billows from the Churchill bushfire in the Gippsland region of Victoria. (User submitted via ABC Contribute: whatthe41)

It’s difficult for a scottish lad to comprehend the scale of destruction here. 450,000 hectares of land burned. Death toll hits 180. And there is more to come.

Evan Davie has put together a map to track the fires.

Living fairly close to the centre of Melbourne, we’ve been well out of the calamity that has struck the surrounding countryside. Looking at that map above, I can see the ring of red dots that circle the north and east of the city, But here on Saturday the fires were only noticeable in the red skyline on all sides, the smoke in the distance and the feeling of Armageddon. This was maybe also due to the heat, which was extreme, but when you stepped outside into it, the world seemed to be coming to an end.

Photo taken in Mc Donald Street Morwell at 4:20pm 07-02-2009 (curtesy of ABC, taken by topcats)