It's too late to start cleaning your gutters, removing flammable materials away from the house and worrying about the kids and the pets when smoke is towering thousands of metres into the air, ember attack is sparking spot fires well inside the urban area and 100 metre high walls of flame are on the horizon.

Take the time to speak to one of the many Canberrans who lived through the worst experience of their lives during our last "black sky day" in 2003.

It would be a rare survivor who said they weren't traumatised by that experience and didn't live in fear of it happening again.

Those who lived through the 2003 firestorm would now be lucky to make up little more than half of the ACT's current population.

Just do the math. While we were home to 310,000 people back then, a number that has now risen by about 30 per cent to just over 400,000, Canberra has always had a highly mobile population.

Almost half a generation has passed. The one in five of us under 16 weren't even born when four people were killed, 435 were injured and 488 buildings were destroyed between January 8 and January 23, 2003.

They, like the tens of thousands of others who have moved here since then, only know of our community's vulnerability through media reports and chats with parents and neighbours. This isn't quite the same.

An unfortunate consequence is that for every fire conscious survivor there would be one or more residents who just don't have the same degree of mindfulness.

For them the smoke is an inconvenience; not an apocalyptic warning. The closure of the King's Highway just meant the trip to the beach took longer than usual and the only people really at risk are those who live deep in the bush.

Wrong, wrong and wrong. In the last month we have seen fires started by ember attack threaten homes in built up areas kilometres away from the main front; the highway closure, while not unprecedented, is a first for this early in the season and the danger is very real.

It is not our intention to cause undue alarm. But, that said, we would be remiss not to alert our community to the clear and present dangers on our doorstep which have been exacerbated by a devastating drought.

Walk from the back of the Australian War Memorial to the top of Mount Ainslie. The trees, the sticks and the remaining grass are tinder dry. It would take just one spark to set it off.

We are not being extreme. Consider this statement from the Emergency Services Agency website: "Canberra is a city designed and built within a bush and grass landscape where residents are able to live, work and play among nature, hence the term, The Bush Capital. This means bushfires are an inevitable fact of life in the ACT".

Despite the fact our services are reported to be in much better shape in terms of resources, manpower and management than they were 17 years ago, there is only so much they can do.

Canberra's frontline defence against bushfires is not the ACT government; it is not the firefighters and other emergency service workers.

Our frontline defence is the people who live here. Make sure your house is as well prepared as it can be; check on your neighbours - especially the elderly and vulnerable, and have a plan. There is an abundance of information available online.

What you do today may save yours, or somebody else's, life tomorrow.