in under 20 minutes and people who walk the entire 5km in over an hour. One of our volunteer roles is a tail-runner who stays behind the last parkrunner — no one gets left behind.

Where is it? Townsville is fortunate enough to have not one but two parkruns, which is unusual outside of a capital city. And we were the first of the tropical parkruns (Cairns and Darwin have since started events). In Townsville one is at Pioneer Park, Riverway, and the other is at North Shore. Riverway celebrated its first anniversary on March 29, 2014 and is now regularly seeing 80-90 people turn up each week.

When is it? Every Saturday at 7am (be there at 6.45am for the first-timers briefing). It’s on rain or shine.

How much isGov. Jerry Brown warned that the state’s fire seasons will continue to get longer and more volatile, and called for a global fight against climate change after visiting devastated parts of Ventura County on Saturday morning.

The Thomas fire, the largest of Southern California’s six continuing infernos, expanded from 148,000 to 155,000 acres and was only 15 percent contained in its sixth day, even as officials flooded the area with local, state and federal firefighters and equipment — including two C-130 military transport aircraft.

The blaze destroyed 600 structures and threatened more as it spread north toward Santa Barbara. Already, $17 million has been spent on fire-suppression efforts, the Ventura County Fire Department reported.

“This is the new normal,” Brown said, in a news conference after his tour. “We’re facing a