It's mid-October, not that far into spring and still some way off summer and yet the bushfire season has made an early start. This was the view from the interurban platforms at Central this afternoon.

The cloud that you see is in fact smoke blown in from bushfires which were burning in the Blue Mountains. At the time of writing, there were more than 100 fires burning in New South Wales with more than 40 of them out of control. Up to 100 homes are believed to be at risk and the number lost to date is unknown.

This is one of two images that I considered using for my PAD today. You can see the other one in the PAD Gallery itself.