Just over six months on from the bushfires which devatstated so much of the eastern seaboard of Australia, we need to ensure the lessons from that terrible time are not forgotten.
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In just two weeks' time, the days will begin to get longer as the earth begins its slow tilt back towards summer. That means the time to prepare for another bushfire season is upon us.
With so much happening this year, including a global pandemic and a worldwide outpouring over black deaths at the hands of the police, it's easy to push the fire menace to the back of our minds.
We need to shift the fire threat back to the forefront of our thinking.
For those directly impacted by the fire, it has not yet receded from consciousness. They're living the aftermath even more acutely through winter.
Around Fishermans Paradise and Lake Conjola, residents are pleading for the lessons to be learned. And when you cast your mind back to that dreadful New Year's Eve, which saw the firestorm claim 89 homes and three lives, it's easy to understand why.
They are concerned a backburn on the other side of the highway got away from firefighters, jumping across the highway and roaring into Conjola Park. RFS incident controller Mark Williams says it will probably never be possible to determine whether the backburn or the main fire caused the run towards the coastal village.
What can agreed upon, however, is that years of drought and extremely hot and windy conditions contributed to an explosive fuel load. Any fire in that environment would be napalm-like in its ferocity.
We know, too, there were other factors at work on New Year's Eve which made containing the multiple blazes on the South Coast impossible to contain.
In Lake Conjola, firefighters were hampered by a loss of water pressure and a communications blackout meant residents were not getting alerts.
And, at the end of the day, there were simply not enough firefighters and trucks to stop a blaze that had turned into a firestorm on multiple fronts.
There is much more investigation needed into how the fire season so quickly got out of hand. Those lessons will come in due course.
One lesson that can be learnt right now is to heed the warnings of those in the firefighting business. Their biggest enemy after fire itself is complacency.
