On Xmas day in 2001 there were huge bushfires in Sydney’s outer western suburbs. As you can see in a later pic, the sky was solid smoke over my house. It was really eery. I’ve had worse. The first place I moved to had fires so close there were huge pieces of smouldering debris falling in the front yard.
But anyway on Xmas day I caught a ferry across the harbour to my mother’s place in the north east of Sydney. This was on the ferry trip over.