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Bush fires in Australia
The recent terrible Victorian fires of black Saturday on February 7th 2009 are still a fresh memory. It shows how deadly Australian nature can be when lit by a fire.
Read here more about nature in Australia
Bushfires are a part of Australia’s natural history, as fires clean up nature from old and dead plants/wood. Aboriginals used to burn down parts of the land to allow for new young and fertile regrowth. Eucalyptus trees have adapted to the bushfires. After being burnt and blackened on the outside, gumtrees miraculously fully recover. And within a few years no sign of fire is left. Sadly in recent years bushfires, either started naturally e.g. by lightning or lighted by sick minds, have reached populated areas, burning down houses and even killing people. 
The most notorious Australian bushfires were:
  • Black Saturday on February 7th 2009 was the most horrific bushfire in world's history, killing approximately 200 people and leaving tens of thousands homeless. The extreme weather conditions of a combination of 44 degrees temperature and storm winds were not seen before, causing the flames to travel at a unbelievable pace making it impossible to flee. Beautiful tourist villages like Marysville were almost entirely destroyed.
  •  February 1983 - The notorious `Ash Wednesday` bushfires claimed 47 lives in Victoria and 28 in South Australia. About 180 bushfires raged in both states, the largest of them starting in Victoria. Within days the fires had burnt through 520,000 hectares, destroying 3700 buildings, 1000 farms, 340,000 sheep and 18,000 cattle.
  • January 1994 - Four people died and a million hectares of bushland was destroyed when fires spread out of control in Sydney and surrounding areas.
  • January 1997 - Three people died in Dandenong Ranges fires in Victoria.
  • January 2003 - Firestorms fanned by high winds hit Canberra on Saturday January 18, 2003, killing four people.
  • January 2005 - A bushfire killed at least eight people* and destroyed property on South Australia's Eyre Peninsula.

 

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