A bit of perspective would not go amiss for this authoress, before wading into confected angst. Here is an edited selection of previous fires from Andrew Bolt’s blog, this morning, Oct 21:

1957: Bushfires in the Blue Mountains

1964/65: Major fires occurred in the Snowy Mountains, Southern Tablelands and outer metropolitan area.

1968/69: Widespread damage occurred over much of the eastern part of the State.

1969/70: The Roto fire burnt some 280,000ha in a three week period.

1972/73: The south-eastern corner of the State suffered the worst fires since 1968 with over 200,000ha burnt.

1974/75: The severest season for perhaps 30 years in the far west with 3,755,000ha burnt, 50,000 stock lost and 10,170km of fencing destroyed. 1.5 million ha were burnt in the Cobar Shire in mid-December and 340,000ha in the Balranald fire. The Moolah-Corinya fire burnt 1,117,000ha and was the largest fire put out by bush firefighters. Its perimeter was over 1,000km.

1976/77: In early December, 9,000ha were burnt and three homes destroyed in Hornsby Shire, and 65,000ha were burnt in the Blue Mountains.

1977/78: In the Blue Mountains area 49 buildings were destroyed and 54,000ha burnt.

1978/79: Serious fires occurred in the Southern Highlands and South West Slopes regions. Over 50,000ha were burnt, five houses were destroyed and heavy stock losses were inflicted.

1979/80: Following severe drought conditions over most of the State, major fires were widespread. In Mudgee Shire, 55,400ha were burnt and one life was lost. … Fires occurred in the majority of council areas within the State burning a total of over 1 million ha.

1982/83: $12 million worth of pine plantation was destroyed in southern NSW in a fire, which burnt 25,000ha in only two and a half hours. The Grose Valley fire burnt 35,000ha.

1984/85: This was the worst fire season for ten years in the grassed western areas of the State. On Christmas Day more than 100 fires were started by lightning strikes and 500,000ha burnt as a result.

1987/88: Over 115,000ha were burnt in the Bethungra and Warurillah/Yanco fires with three lives lost at the Bethungra fire

From the first paragraph - climate change is the most politicised issue in the country alongside the tragedy of refugees arriving by boat.
Get ready for those two to start marching hand in hand across the global stage. I suspect we ain't seen nothing yet.

A is A,

Have you any figures from past years where massive firestorms have erupted in October or generally very early in the season.

Not trying be a smart with that question - I'm genuinely interested in that aspect.

>"We need to talk about climate now"

We've been talking about climate for 25 years. Most of the talk has been little more than extremists beliefs like religious zealotry. The talk has comprised exaggeration, misinformation, group think and herd mentality together with a great deal of straight out dishonesty. And much of this has come from academics, like the high profile Australian climate science academics. The Climate Commission and the Climate Commissioners were an utter disgrace.

The policies that were advocated by climate scientists, NGOs and the Labor and Greens Parties were/are bad policies. For example, the Labor-Green carbon restrain policies cost us $19 billion this year and would cost $22 billion per year in 2019 (abolut the same as our entire Defense budget). And they would have zero effect on the climate, so there would be no benefits from these really bad policies and huge expenditures.

It is becoming apparent (a concenusus!!) that global warming would be net benefitical up to about 2.2C increase from now (3c above preindustrial):

http://www.spectator.co.uk/features/9057151/carry-on-warming/

http://www.lomborg.com/sites/default/files/Congress_testimony_April_2013_3.pdf

It's time to get rational. Stop the religious and ideological advocacy and get rational instead!!

It would seem that the public needs to start talking
about living in bushfire-prone areas and planning
for ways to minimise the impact of an extended fire
season. Catastropic events such as the fires in NSW
should come as no surprise due to a dry winter.

Researchers from the Climate Change Research Centre
at the University of NSW used an index based on the
temperature, wind speed, relative humidity and fuel
availability to find that fire risk had increased
at 16 out of 38 locations in Australia between 1973 and
2010. Of the sites surveyed, none were safer from
severe fire conditions than they were 40 years ago.

Ignoring and not planning for ways to minimise the
impact of any fire season is just plain foolish.
If warmer than average days are predicted people must
be vigilant about their local fire conditions.

It's never a good time to discuss issues that are politically and financially inconvenient for those with a particular political bent and/or a vested interest.
The issue of Climate Change reminds me of the ever present issue of paying a fair amount of company and personal tax. When the economy is going gang-busters it's a case of "shhh, don't kill the goose that lays the golden egg" and when the economy is struggling it's a case of "how dare you talk about increasing taxes at a time like this?"
It appears it's NEVER a good time to talk about issues that are inconvenient for many people.
Interestingly, Climate Change doesn't care when is a convenient time to discuss it, it simply keeps marching on resolutely without a care for the wishes, desires and beliefs of fools.
Watch the video 'Last Hours' narrated by Thom Hartmann about the "time bomb" that is ticking underground, underwater and under ice… frozen methane that is now escaping and could trigger runaway climate change. www.lasthours.org