Seeing Sydney harbour's iconic opera house and bridge overshadowed by a huge glowering cloud is like an image from a disaster flick, but this disaster is real. Smoke from bushfires in the Blue Mountains west of the city made day into night on Wednesday afternoon.
Some Blue Mountain residents have been evacuated to schools and shopping centres as the fires overcame homes in the area.
Australia's bushfires play an integral part in the ecology of the country. But climate change is causing them to worsen, along with other extreme weather such as floods and torrential rains.
Some experts are even recommending that parts of Australia be restricted as "uninhabitable zones" – places where the fire risk is so high no home should be built.
Australia is not alone in being hit by extreme conditions blamed on climate change – 2013 has been a year of freak weather all around the world.
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