“Truly indicating this is a once-a-century kind of event, at even a conservative estimate,” Dr Williamson said.

Professor Bowman, who has spent most of his career studying rainforest boundaries and fires, has visited all the stand-out fires events that have taken place in the world over the past few years.

What took place in Queensland, he believes, is entirely consistent with fires in other parts of the world, both in intensity and their links to a changing climate.

“It all ties together as being this signature of a warming, drying climate that makes vegetation burn but, more worryingly, burn in a way that is really outside our mainstream experience. So we’re on a learning curve.”
“This is the terrestrial equivalent of ice sheeting breaking up.”