The bush fires have been compared to a spate of deadly California wildfires sparked by power lines in forests choked with dead and tinder-dry trees after years of drought and hands-off timber policies. Patrick Michaels, who served as Virginia state climatologist for 27 years, said that until the dry understory brush is cleaned up, these regions will be subject to horrific fires every year.

Australia's catastrophic bush fires have been widely blamed on human-caused climate change, but evidence is mounting that the devastation has more to do with environmentalist policies than fossil fuel emissions.

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has taken the brunt of popular anger for the wildfires, which have consumed about 15.6 million acres, but the devastation follows years of eco-driven government policies discouraging prescribed burns, tree-thinning and firebreak-building in the name of forest and habitat preservation, some climate scholars say.