I've been a volunteer firefighter in Australia for 25 years, my father and his father were.. the understanding that wildfires do this is old, I remember my grandfather talking about big wildfires in his day creating their own weather.

I've been noticing in the media over the last ~5 years this narrative that climate change is causing this 'horrifying new phenomena' .. no. sorry. (PS: not a climate change skeptic, totally agree with the science, just not the media in this instance)