Is it the trees that are a problem, or is it a lot of uncleared underbrush? Also I heard that they have been having a twelve year drought and the temperature was 120 degrees. I guess all the global warming has gone down there, because we haven’t been having it up here this winter.
It’s both, per my read. Don’t forget they have Eucalyptus trees, which, if you’re not familiar, shed very thin layers of “bark” (it’s not coarse bark like oak/walnut trees, it’s like your skin, it sheds in thin layers and also hangs off the trees) in prodigious quantities; this would be like construction-paper in terms of how quickly even a tiny spark could catch it afire....and then the trees themselves are very gummy and flammable, much more so than oak, elm, etc; So, if you had a bunch of scrub brush, 120 degrees, and all the detritus from these trees, OMG, it will catch and burn like mad.