I don`t know how the setup there works around brush and bush fires. Here as farm and smallholding owners we are obliged by law to have fire-lanes around the our properties. In conjustion with the local farming orgs. we created a fire fighting capability within the our farm and smallholding communities. We bought what we call "fire fighters" 4 of them. Its a small trailer that have a 2 000 liter water tank mounted on it with a motorized waterpump and thick rupper hose with an ajustable nozzle. Each owner is also equiped with fith fire placks an extra long wooden stick with a wide rubber sheet about 3/4 inch thick and two 1.5 feet wide. Then there is about 6 water backpack sprayers end two fire starters, looks like a fire extingguisher with a curled copper on the front, whe use them start backburn fires. We contribute about 10$ a year to this "fire fund". This is done all over the country where bush fires are problamatic. Oh anohter thing all our comunity members are in radio contact in our area and adjacent areas, it makes the coordination in fighting the much eazier. I just think the scale that you guys have deal with, is very much larger, but maybe its something you can think about. I`ll check if i can get some pictures of those placks and other things i mentioned. I`m also very sorry about the lives that was lost in the fires so far, i really hope that it stays at that.