AUSTRALIA is probably the most fire prone country in the world. Its dry, sparse vegetation and its seasonally hot and arid climate combine to create ideal conditions for the "bushfires" that have been endemic on the continent since long before mankind arrived some 40,000 years ago.
In those primeval days the major cause of forest fires was lightning. Even today lightning ignites some 30 per cent of Australian bushfires, butt human activity, intentional or otherwise, has increased their incidence dramatically. At any given time, bushfires are raging somewhere on the continent, and the climate fosters a well established annual pattern. In the tropical dry season of the Australian winter and spring the fires are concentrated in the north of Queensland and in the countryside just south of Darwin; as spring turns to summer, the tropical rains extinguish the northern fires, and at this time of year, from December until March the southern and western parts of the continent become most vulnerable.
The northern bushfires tend to be long lasting, and frequently destroy vast areas of grassland, but because many parts of the region are sparsely populated, these regular events attract little attention. By contrast, fires in the south eastern states are typically intense and short lived, but in these more densely populated areas the toll in terms of lives and property is often very high indeed.
A few Australian bushfires have been catastrophes of such dimensions that they are remembered as major events in the history of the nation. One such occurred in the State of Victoria east of Melbourne in February, 1983, and resulted in 47 deaths. Also indelibly imprinted on the antipodean folk memory is the famous "Black Friday" fire of January 13th, 1939, which extracted an even greater toll and is remembered vividly as one of the greatest disasters in Australia's history. And a third occurred just 30 years ago today.
The Tasmanian spring of, late 1966 was much wetter than usual, and was followed by one of the driest summers on record. These conditions led to abundant growth followed by extensive drying of the vegetation, and a hot, dry, north westerly wind in early February robbed the island's indigenous fuel of the last traces of its moisture. Ignition followed, and the bushfire reached its peak on February 7th, 1967, claiming 62 lives, destroying 1,400 homes, and laying waste some 1,000, square miles of the Tasmanian landscape.
