It was 1 a.m. and I struggled to sleep as wind blasted through the forest canopy and the smell of smoke hung in the air from distant fires.   Pastures and bushland were fueling a widening fire-front about 90 kilometers (56 miles) to the north of our mountain home on the edge of Melbourne. In between, endless valleys of fire-prone Eucalyptus forest, dried out over hot summer weeks, were a tinderbox ready to explode.  I'm lucky to live in one of the most beautiful places on earth. But with just a