A grim summer of fire and smoke has sullied Australia's outdoorsy and healthy image, and left many fearful for the future.

For the unfortunate few, three long months of bushfires have brought almost unfathomable pain -- homes lost, lives destroyed, families ripped apart.

But for many millions more the crisis has also shattered the long sunny days typically filled with beaches, barbecues and backyard cricket.

Sporting events were cancelled, windows shuttered against weeks of menacing toxic haze and barbecues banned to prevent even more fires.

Famed beaches like Bondi were partially blackened, as the tide washed the ash of incinerated eucalypts back to shore.

Holidays were cancelled as entire towns were shut off, highways were bumper-to-bumper with fleeing tourists and petrol stations mobbed as fuel ran out during the largest peacetime evacuations the country has ever seen.

"We've seen the whole Australian way of life over summer across the continent upended," social researcher Rebecca Huntley, who has surveyed Australia's attitudes to the changing climate, told AFP.

"Instead of looking at the end of the year as a time to relax, (Australians) are getting quite anxious."

Images of military evacuations and frightened families huddled on beaches under red skies have challenged many people's previously idyllic idea of the continent.

Huntley said the severity of the fires was challenging the perception that living in Australia meant having a high quality of life, with Sydney and Melbourne long-ranked as among the most liveable cities in the world.

Now residents have become expert at reading wind forecasts and fire maps to predict whether their kids will be able to play outside tomorrow.

The Christmas dinner table featured debates about specific anti-pollution masks and air purifiers, topics often associated with daily life in New Delhi or Bangkok.

Kate Noble-Judge, whose parents were evacuated from their small New South Wales town over New Year, said the festive season turned into days of dread and worry.

"It wears you down because you feel so helpless. You can't visit because the roads might close or the fires might worsen," the Sydney resident told AFP.

"You can't even just go for a walk to take your mind off it because the city is always full of smoke and that eerie orange glow. All you can do is stay at home and worry."

- The nature of adaptation -

All the while, the warnings from scientists have been stark.

Australia is warming as a result of climate change, with new record temperatures set almost every year.

Catastrophic fire conditions that usually occur once in several decades are becoming the new normal.

"Those sort of conditions will become more frequent under the climate change scenario that we are looking at," Richard Thornton, from the Bushfire and Natural Hazards Cooperative Research Centre, told AFP.

"So while they used to be spread many years apart, they'll become more regular. There'll be things we'll need to do to live through the frequent arrival some these sorts of conditions."

Many doctors say they cannot know what the impact of prolonged exposure to bushfire smoke will be.

With volunteer firefighters -- the main service battling the blazes -- already exhausted from months of work as climate change extends the fire season, Huntley said tackling emergencies rather than enjoying a vacation could define future summer seasons.

"It may be that Christmas might not be a time where you relax. You may have a posting in the country where you help with bushfire support," she said.

David Bowman, a pyrogeography and fire science expert at the University of Tasmania, recently speculated how Australians' daily life may change.

He called for rescheduling the peak holiday period to March-April instead of December-January, suggesting it was "absurd" to send thousands of tourists to bushfire prone coastal areas each year.

"It's easy to dismiss this idea as stupid but that's the nature of adaptation. Things that once seemed absurd will now need serious consideration."

Australia fires 'long way from over' but rain brings relief
Mogo, Australia (AFP) Jan 11, 2020 - Massive bushfires in southeastern Australia still have a "long way to go", authorities have warned, even as colder conditions brought some relief to exhausted firefighters and communities on Saturday.

After a blustery night that saw a series of massive infernos in New South Wales and Victoria states merge into a mega-blaze four times the size of Greater London, temperatures dropped and rain fell on fire-scarred regions.

"Whilst it was a very long and -- in parts of New South Wales -- difficult night, we're relieved this morning that no lives have been lost and no substantial property damage," New South Wales Premier Gladys Berejiklian told reporters on Saturday.

The milder conditions are expected to last around a week, giving firefighters time to try to get the fires under control.

New South Wales Rural Fire Service commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons described the conditions as the "best seven days we have had without a rise of very dangerous fire ratings".

In a matter of months, the catastrophic bushfires have killed at least 26 people, destroyed more than 2,000 homes and scorched some 10 million hectares (25 million acres) -- an area larger than South Korea or Portugal.

University researchers estimate that more than one billion mammals, birds and reptiles have been killed in the blazes.

Despite the cool change, authorities warned that the bushfire season is not yet over, with hundreds of fires across several states still raging.

The head of a firefighting "strike team" in the village of Towamba, Nathan Barnden, told AFP the rainfall was "fantastic" but "not enough at this stage to put these fires out".

"We're going to need hundreds of millimetres over a period of time to... make firefighting easier for us," he said.

In Victoria state, Premier Daniel Andrews called on communities to remain vigilant and warned that the months-long crisis was "a long way from over".

That message echoed in the town of Mogo, where what remains of the main street was still without power and the few open businesses were running on generators.

Local resident and father-of-two Mark Bucke, 49, said the last 10 days had "been hell, especially with kids".

"We didn't have bread or milk for probably four days."

Bucke said many people in the area had been struggling to cope through the crisis: "It would've been like when there was a war or something, you couldn't get what you usually get -- just the basics -- that was the worst part."

- 'Take stronger action' -

On Friday, tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets across the nation's cities, calling on Australia's conservative government to take stronger action on climate change.

Scientists say climate change has contributed to the lengthening of the fire seasons and fuelled more frequent and intense blazes.

The Australian Academy of Science, an independent organisation representing the country's leading scientists, said Canberra "must take stronger action" as part of its global commitments to limit global warming.

"The scientific evidence base shows that as the world warms due to human-induced climate change, we experience an increase in the frequency and severity of extreme weather events," the academy's president John Shine said in a statement.

"As a nation, we must deal with extreme weather events more effectively than we currently do."

Australia experienced its driest and hottest year on record in 2019, with its highest average maximum temperature of 41.9 degrees Celsius (107.4 degrees Fahrenheit) recorded in mid-December.

Despite growing domestic and international criticism, Prime Minister Scott Morrison -- who has long touted the importance of commodity exports such as coal for Australia's economy -- has repeatedly defended his government's climate policies.

The unprecedented crisis has also sparked an outpouring of fundraising from celebrities, sportspeople and locals in support of volunteer firefighters at the frontlines and devastated communities.

The Sydney Opera House was to project images shot during the fires onto the building's sails Saturday, ahead of a comedy gala fundraiser.

Related Links
Forest and Wild Fires - News, Science and Technology

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Strong winds create Australian 'megablaze'
Eden, Australia (AFP) Jan 10, 2020
Gale-force winds in Australia merged two enormous fires into a megablaze across land almost four times the area of New York City on Friday, while thousands rallied to again demand action on climate change. "The conditions are difficult today," said Shane Fitzsimmons, rural fire service commissioner for New South Wales state, after days of relative calm. "It's the hot, dry winds that will prove once again to be the real challenge." Temperatures soared above 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fah ... read more