Oh, California. We Australians have been watching your burning nightmare unfold with the sad realization that you are now living in ours.

It’s always fire season somewhere in Australia. Bushfires, as we call them, haunt our collective imagination. Tales of the terror they instill have featured in Indigenous storytelling for thousands of years and weave through our modern literature, films and television. They’re as integral to our landscape as gum trees and kangaroos; some species of local plant life have even evolved to need bushfires for seed germination.

As Angelenos stand in the ashes of their own fires, the fear, rage and finger-pointing has kicked in. Australians have been there, too. Fire transforms what it touches, not just the air that it poisons and the land it blackens, but also people and institutions. Over time, we’ve learned that comanaging nature and urban sprawl involves trade-offs that are difficult but worth making.

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That was Mark Zuckerberg in his 20s. Mark Zuckerberg in his 40s is a very different Mark Zuckerberg.

Nearly every Australian has a bushfire story — or a few. I was a 6-year-old in the suburbs of Sydney when I first saw that red sun in the unnatural darkness of a smoke-filled sky. A vast majority of us live in or around a city, but our suburbs and inland towns have long crept into adjacent forests and grasslands similar to fire-prone California landscapes. It’s a dangerous choice: Australia is hotter and dryer than the United States,66br with strong winds and frequent droughts. The eucalyptus trees that dominate native vegetation are infused with a volatile oil that’s highly flammable and their dried-out bark and leaves form a blanket of fuel on forest floors.

Australia’s deadliest fires occurred in 2009 in Victoria, my adopted home state and one of the most vulnerable to bushfires. On a single day, 400 distinct blazes ignited. The thousands of firefighters deployed to fight them were overwhelmed; more than 2,000 homes were destroyed, 173 people were killed and hundreds were injured.

Victoria’s premier at the time, John Brumby, responded decisively. He warned the public in advance, accepted help from other Australian states and the military, set up relief centers, quickly made financial assistance available and visited hard-hit communities. He initiated an inquiry to identify ways in which the state might better prepare for and respond to fires. Sixty-seven recommendations were ultimately made, and Mr. Brumby heaved huge amounts of money and political capital into their speedy application.

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