At the best of times, Down Under you’ll get killed by the snakes and spiders; if you’re driven into the ocean it’s into the jaws of a great white shark. As if that wasn’t bad enough major fires are burning in Australia west of Sydney.

“The reason we are particularly concerned is that we went into last Thursday with not too much fire. We’re going into some bad weather now with lots of fire and literally 500 kilometres of fire edge that needs to be dealt with, and that will present serious issues should we see that hot, dry, windy weather which is likely toward the middle of the week,” he said.