[turbo_pascale (Rob)]

This is a shot from the hill in front of my house in Templestowe, today Sunday 15 Feb 2009 at around 4pm.
At a guess, this is around Whittlesea / Kinglake West, about 20-25km away (shot on 300mm telephoto - looks closer to me than that but I don't know if it is just an extensive backburning operation or not). Either way, it's easy to see how people could easily misjudge how far away the fire was. Perception is very tricky.

Turbo