Category Archives: Bushfire

Jim Hickman, a Fire Management Officer from Tasmania, first suggested using lasers for slash burning in the late 1960s. Inspired by US weapons research, Forestry Tasmania wanted to ignite logging slash from 4 to 5 km away. The idea was further promoted by Phil Shepherd in a series of reports in 1973. In 1975, PhilContinue reading “Star Wars.”

“Walking in their shoes”. Staff Rides can trace their origins back to the Prussian Army after the Napoleonic Wars. They were adapted by the US military and then more recently by many American fire agencies. They are now considered an essential technique to develop senior leadership skills. The Cobaw Bushfire Staff Ride in 2011 wasContinue reading “Cobaw Bushfire Staff Ride.”

The summer of 2002-03 had been one of the largest and most prolonged fire seasons for many years. Huge bushfires spread across the Victorian Alps, NSW and even into some Canberra suburbs where four people died and over 500 homes were lost. People and communities were angry and several state and federal government inquiries wereContinue reading “Cobaw Escaped Burn – April 2003.”

Bushfire behaviour is influenced by many things including temperature, relative humidity, forest type, fuel quantity and fuel dryness, topography and even slope. Wind has a dominant effect on the Rate of Spread (ROS), and also bushfire size, shape and direction. Fuel arrangement is as important as fuel quantity (tonnes/ha). Fibrous and ribbon bark, together withContinue reading “Speedy Moisture Meter.”

There was no respite… Three weeks after Ash Wednesday, on Thursday 10 March 1983 at about 8.30 pm, a fire broke out in the National Park about 4 km west of Loch Sport near Beacon Swamp Track. The fire began in thick coastal heathland on the southern shores of Lake Victoria and the cause wasContinue reading “Loch Sport – 1983.”

Prelude. In the lead up to the summer of 1982/83, most of Victoria experienced a severe drought, which began as early as 1979. Rainfall during the winter and spring of 1982 was low while summer rainfall for Victoria was up to 75% less than in previous years. The persistent low rainfall meant less moisture inContinue reading “Ash Wednesday – 16 February 1983.”

Victoria was in the grip of drought when Melbourne was smothered by a giant dust storm blown in from the mallee deserts during the afternoon of Tuesday 8 February 1983. Earlier in the morning a strong, but dry, cold front began crossing Victoria, preceded by hot, gusty northerly winds. The temperature in the city roseContinue reading “1983 Melbourne dust storm – countdown to catastrophe.”

Another Australian first. The first fire spotting aircraft in Australia was deployed on 18 February 1930 when a RAAF Westland Wapiti from No.1 Squadron operating out of Point Cook near Melbourne flew over the nearby Dandenong Ranges. The first Chairman of the Forests Commission, Owen Jones, had been one of Britain’s pioneering aviators in theContinue reading “Bushfire aerial reconnaissance.”

In addition to building dams and water points, the Stretton Royal Commission recommended expanding the use of bushfire dugouts. Well-constructed dugouts had saved the lives of many sawmill workers and their families during the 1939 bushfires. But in some locations, they had proved fatal. Dugouts became mandatory for those few sawmills that remained in theContinue reading “Bushfire dugouts.”

There is a common belief that even the slightest bushfire in mountain ash forests (E. regnans) is catastrophic and uniformly kills every tree in its wake. It’s true that mountain ash is very susceptible to bushfire, but the story is not that simple. Fire behaviour and intensity depends on many things, like forest type andContinue reading “Ash Wednesday 1983 – Bushfire mosaics.”

In July 1983, the Forests Commission ran a three-day staff workshop to review the previous calamitous bushfire season. The formation of the Department of Conservation, Forests, and Lands (CFL) had only just been announced at the time of the meeting. Police Commissioner Mick Miller’s Inquiry, and Coroner Anthony Ellis’s probe into Ash Wednesday were alsoContinue reading “AIIMS – Incident Control System (ICS).“

Most focus and media commentary about the 1982-83 bushfire season naturally centres on the deadly Ash Wednesday fires of 16 February 1983 when 75 people were killed in Victoria and South Australia. But in the far east of the State, and largely unreported by mainstream media, the Forests Commission Victoria (FCV) and CFA faced twoContinue reading “Cann River campaign fires – 1983.”

Maybe it was an ominous foreboding of a long fire season ahead for the CFA and the Forests Commission Victoria (FCV). Major bushfires broke out in November 1982 at Seaton, Murrindal and Mt Elizabeth in Gippsland, as well as the mallee desert and Mt. Disappointment near Broadford On Wednesday 24 November at 2.00 pm aContinue reading “Bright Plantation Fire – 1982.”

Cockatoo is a small village nestled into the southern foothills of the Dandenong Ranges were the suburbs meets the bush. Narrow gravel roads and modest fibro homes characterised the settlement. The Cockatoo fire began late afternoon at 7.28 pm on Ash Wednesday 16 February 1983, about four hours after the blaze at Belgrave South. ItContinue reading “Ash Wednesday 1983 – Cockatoo.”

On Ash Wednesday 16 February 1983, at 3.24 pm, a bushfire started on Birds Land near Mount Morton Road at Belgrave Heights. There had been concerns expressed in the months before the fire about the fuel loads by the CFA to the local Sherbrooke council which owned the block. The temperature at 2.00 pm atContinue reading “Ash Wednesday 1983 – Belgrave / Upper Beaconsfield.”