The Arizona Republic obtained a copy of an FBI memo warning that our recent bushfires inspired an al Qaeda plan to start forest fires in western countries as part of its global terror campaign. The memo was based on claims by an unidentified al Qaeda detainee that he planned to set midsummer forest fires in American wilderness states.

"The detainee believed significant damage to the US economy would result and ... citizens would put pressure on the US government to change its policies," the memo said.

The terrorist hoped to create several large, catastrophic wildfires at once, mimicking the destructive fires that swept across Australia in 2002. The FBI alerted forest and fire services but not the general public, the newspaper said.

The detainee told investigators his plan called for three or four operatives to set timed explosive devices in US forests and grasslands. The devices would be set to detonate after the operatives had left the country.

But the validity of the claim could not be confirmed: "The information provided may have been intended to influence as well as inform," the memo said.

"How hard would it be for someone to get in a small plane and fly over a forest dropping [flares] or firing off a flare gun?" a forest service official is quoted as saying.

Australia's uniquely fire-prone ecology would seem to make it especially vulnerable to such a strategy. The infamous Ash Wednesday bushfires, for example, burnt 335,000ha of pastoral and forest land in Victoria and South Australia on a single day in 1983. More than 70 people died, thousands were injured, more than 2000 houses were razed, 270,000 stock animals were killed, 21,000ha of forest plantations were burnt and the total damage bill exceeded $450m.

Asked if Australia had considered the possibility of bushfire terrorism, a spokeswoman for the Attorney-General, Daryl Williams, told The Bulletin: "Australian security authorities are aware of reports that al Qaeda has considered starting bushfires in the US as a form of terrorist attack. Arson attacks are just one of a wide range of scenarios which have been considered as part of our investigations into al Qaeda's ability to conduct attacks in Australia. The government has received no information which would justify changing the current level of threat ... Australian security measures were increased following the September 11 and Bali terrorist incidents, and remain appropriate to the assessed level of threat. Australia has sound emergency management/services capacity to respond to and recover from any event whether it be naturally, technologically, or human caused."

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