Already authorities are reporting grass fires and other fires on a daily basis and human activity whether accidental or deliberate has played a big hand.

Arsonists will always be a factor in bushfires and detection and tracking methods are becoming more sophisticated every year.

But when the Rural Fire Service also has to respond to fires started accidentally by members of the community who should know better their task is made unnecessarily harder.

Warnings about the dangers of the hot exhaust system on a modern car and parking in dry grass are not new. Neither are the cautions about using agricultural machinery or tools capable of creating a spark in paddocks.

Every year fire authorities remind us that this is how many fires start and yet still there will be fires ignited because too many people don’t pause to think.

This season there are increased fines for some fire season offences, including one for smokers caught throwing smouldering cigarette butts out of cars, but they have to be caught and a successful prosecution is of little comfort for the RFS brigades who have to respond to the consequences of these careless actions.

With the last good rain now more than a month ago and November looking like it will be a hot and windy month we can only imagine what the fire danger rating will be by the height of summer.

The one risk factor we can all help control is human behaviour. Either by our own actions in reducing the risk on properties or being aware of the behaviour of others, we can reduce the number of small outbreaks, any of which could escalate into a bushfire emergency.