Australia Bush Fires

The smoke from the bush fires ravaging Australia has reached where I am right now. Last night I couldn't go outside as the air was bad, and get this, I'm in Christchurch on the east coast of New Zealand's South Island. That's 3-4 days by sea, 3-4 hours by air, across the expanse of the Tasman Sea. I'm not young and have seen a bit of this and that, but this is one thing I've never experienced before. Perhaps a little bit of haze in the sky, OK, but not the actual smoke in the air and feeling it is hard to breath. These fires are truly catastrophic.