The Canberra fires and the recent bushfires in Victoria

also proved that there are a large number of ill-prepared and incredibly stupid people who live in bushfire-prone areas. I doubt that spending huge amounts of money on equipment will solve that problem.
As to the death toll in Australia, it seems that the vast majority of these are in Victoria. Why is that? I have lived in the NSW Blue Mountains all my life and we have fires every year. In the last 30 years I don't think the death toll here has reached double figures while the road toll has probably been 400+