it smells like burning....

For most of this week the air here in Melbourne smells of smoke and there is constant smoke haze of the city.

Seems that this year is possibly going to be the worst on record for bushfires.  Currently there are some 50 fires burning out of control in the east of the state. 

It's predicted that with the hot weather this weekend and unfavourable wind conditions many of these fires will join up to make several really large fires.

At this stage there are about 2000 Country Fire Fighters tackling the fires with reinforcements coming from interstate and New Zealand.

So far the fires have burnt out several hundred thousand hectares with the prediction it could eventually burn out a million hectares.  Fortunatley most of this is forest, and to date only four homes have been lost and no lives.

It's gonna be a long hot summer down here.....

i'm about 10 miles west from the centre of Melbourne and due to it still being a developing region there's still alot of paddocks around and coupled with current water restrictions its very dry. in the past we've had fires some 50 miles from us, but the current situation would be about 150 miles east from us..