Early warning: human detectors, drones and the race to control Australia's extreme blazes

Perched in his fire tower high above the pine trees, Nick Dutton leans back and nods to the cascading hills and mountains behind him. "I love being out here, just away from stuff," he says. "I mean, you can't really complain." Dutton, a fire tower operator, is sitting in his office, a tiny cabin propped high above the treetops by metal supports that sway with the wind. His walls are littered with compass points and references, each a guide to the bush stretching in every direction along the eastern ACT-NSW border.