As the situation worsened, more people joined the fight; the RFS, the 'mosquito' squads and land owners with buckets and hoses.

Eventually there were people squirting water from trucks at the front, communications operators, food preparation and distribution workers and many others all doing whatever was necessary to beat the incendiary rampage.

During this time we all worked together to beat the 'red steer' as it was once called. Differences between people - political, religious, football code - whatever, it didn't matter. We all did what was needed to get the fires under control.

I think we should see climate change as a fight that needs the same selfless dedication and spirit of common purpose. It's not about politics. The federal government is committed to reducing Australia's carbon emissions and obviously it wouldn't bother if it didn't believe there is a link between carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and the changing climate.

While we're looking at ways to reduce today's carbon emissions, it makes sense to look at cheap ways to reduce tomorrow's emissions also. If you accept that burning fossil fuels is damaging the atmosphere, as do all our governments, state and federal, then opening new mega-coal mines is big-time crazy bad.

Let's deal with climate change like we do with bushfires, that is, in terms of hazard reduction. What can we do to reduce the risk of a future conflagration? It's a problem we need to solve.

To delay taking action is like a frog in the water coming to the boil.

The gas is lit, but the difference between us and the frog is that we know what's coming.