On October 26, an unseasonably warm Saturday following a run of hot days, lightning stabbed at the ranges. One bolt made ground near a disused airstrip at Gospers Mountain, a densely grown area of the Wollemi National Park, and prickled the kindling into life. It would become the epicentre of the biggest forest fire to have started from a single ignition point that Australia has ever known. …The Gospers Mountain fire has now destroyed an area seven times the size of Singapore – more than 444,000 hectares from the western border of the Blue Mountains to the Central Coast hinterland, north to the Hunter Valley and south to the Hawkesbury and past the Bells Line of Road. Three weeks ago it combined with several fires to form a vast complex that has been dubbed “the mega fire”. To those living in its shadow, it is known as “the monster”.