I’m a CFA volunteer – and as firefighters we have to put community safety above politics

‘Climate change is turbocharging fire conditions, meaning longer and more intense seasons with growing demands on firefighting capacity,’ Cam Walker writes. Photograph: Darrian Traynor/Getty Images

We know that climate change, which causes increased heat and extended drought, has been a key driver in increasing the risk and extent of wildfires in Australia for more than two decades, and that climate change fuelled Australia’s devastating black summer fires.

We also know that if we are to have a hope of avoiding dangerous or catastrophic climate change, the world needs to transition away from its current reliance on fossil fuels as quickly as possible. In this sense, the rapid development of renewables is one of the main actions we need to be taking now.