These past couple of weeks, the wind has been particularly spiteful. Few people would have enjoyed the last few days of relentless, swirling westerlies thrown our way by a succession of vigorous cold fronts from the Southern Ocean.
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As if nerves weren't on edge enough with all the rattling roofs, slamming doors, skittish children and animals and airborne dust and leaf litter. Adding to the annual misery of the August winds has been the recent idiotic activity of firebugs.
We only have to look back a year to see the consequences of fires erupting when the wind is howling. In similar conditions, we saw fires break out in the northern Shoalhaven and in the south, where they menaced the township of Burrill Lake. While spared significant property damage, the fire in the southern Shoalhaven cost the life of a helicopter pilot.
So it is incomprehensible to see fires deliberately lit at a number of locations around the Shoalhaven. In the most suspicious set of blazes at Orient Point and Culburra Beach, arson appears to have been the cause.
Not only is it bizarre people would imperil their own communities when conditions are so bad, it beggars belief they'd risk the stiffer penalties for arson being imposed by the NSW Government.
What might seem like a jolly lark at the time could result in people losing their homes, their livelihoods or even their lives. And as for the dullards lighting the fires, being caught could land them in jail for a very long time.
The NSW Government last year increased the maximum penalty for deliberately lighting bushfires on public land or other people's property from 14 to 21 years.
So an 18-year-old caught lighting a fire that causes loss of life or property could face a stint in jail that would end when they were 39 years old. The penalty would be as stiff as a sentence for murder. No one in their right mind could possibly think that kind of risk was worth it.
We are facing a very challenging bushfire season which, although not officially under way in the Shoalhaven, is already testing firefighters along the length of the NSW coast.
A very dry and warmer than average winter, coupled with strong winds, has made conditions so bad, many regions are already officially in the bushfire danger period. And yet we're still in the grip of winter. The last thing we need is dimwits committing arson.
