I've been trying to remember anything about bush fires from my youth. I lived in central Queensland for a good part of my childhood, throughout the 1980s. I don't recall seeing any haze, being scared, watching anything on the news... Were there any or did I just not care enough to remember?

On the other hand I clearly remember a few floods, big enough to cover many square kilometres.

But then again... I barely remember anything about bush fires from my time in Melbourne either, except the last few years...

2003:

Woke to see the city covered in an orange haze. Couldn't see the city on the train on the last approach to Richmond station. Horrible smoky smell everywhere. I believe Melbourne is hundreds of miles from the nearest fire. Everyone on the train was just staring out the window, mouths open.

In Jan this year we drove to Apollo Bay for a holiday and I clearly remember smoke from those fires filling the air. And flies...

The photo is down the road in front of my house on Saturday.

Update: Mum informs me that there were no bushfires during our time in Queensland, possibly due to it being mostly cleared (cattle and wheat country).

You can now easily get a 1Gb for $50. My dream has come true.

My 512Gb is playing up a bit. There are some files it won't let me delete. Some machines won't see it at all. I'm not brave enough to try running any disk analysis over it, I'm not entirely sure what it will do.

To be fair I did accidentally plug it into a network plug...