It’s hard to escape the sense that the bushfires that have ravaged Australia this summer have changed the country in a way few other natural disasters have done before.

Much like the smoke that spread from the blazes across our capital cities and even overseas, the impacts of this disaster are far-reaching. Disaster management, health systems, climate change, land management, insurance, federal-state relations – it will be years before we act on the answers to the questions these fires have left.