The big smoke: how bushfires cast a pall over the Australian summer

City-dwellers are experiencing the ominous effects of the catastrophic fires that have ripped through bushland in New South Wales and Queensland

Waking in New South Wales this month has been a slow process of figuring out whether or not the fires have come to your door.

The smoke, worst in the mornings usually, but increasingly thick at night, has become a familiar presence. On bad days, it is inside homes and cars and offices. It could be from down the road, or hundreds of kilometres away. On other days, it can be hard to tell whether thin, mild smoke is really there, or is just a trick of the light. At sunup and sundown, the sky becomes bright orange and red and angry. At night, the moon is orange.

Continue reading...

from World news | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2Lqwh1L