Black Saturday: Follow-up to the 2009 Raging Inferno in Australia

An inquiry begins today on the causes of the fires and performance of the fire fighters who fought the inferno that was Melbourne in Australia.

I sincerely hope that the fire fighters will be glowing with all the praise - a hearty echo of other, earlier newspaper reports.

So many Australian lives were touched by the bush fires this year in Melbourne.  Even Australians who were not directly affected at least knew a family member, or had friends who died in the raging maw of hell.

The 100 fires that spread across 208,000 hectares was the largest since the Ash Wednesday fires in Australia back in 1983.  As well as homes, 21,000 hectares of pine plantations were also destroyed. The damage to private property was estimated at more than AUD$200 million.

I clearly remember those fires when I was living in Australia. It was all the nation could think about, as the death toll rapidly climbed each day. The fires destroyed 2,029 homes.

There is a natural cycle for Australian bush fires, beginning with severe drought and compounded with limited rainfall, which prior to the Ash Wednesday fires had been 75% less than normal.

To compound the dangers of the fire even further, there had been excessive and strong, powerful winds which lifted 200,000 tonnes of soil into the air, creating a dust storm across the whole of southern Australia.

Back to the Present

As bad as the Ash Wednesday fires had been, the police confirmed this year's death toll at 173 people and the cause identified as arson.  This is surely mass murder, how can it be seen as anything else?

This year's 60 mile-long blaze, burnt down entire towns, towns I used to know and drive through; the familiar landscapes of a sun rich continent and content fauna  that could always made me smile.

Where are these animals today?

These fires left nothing of these villages, razing around 750 houses in the hills of north eastern Melbourne.  When I lived in Australia, the house I had been living in would not have been in danger, but I probably could have seen the ominous, dangerous glow in the distance.

My eldest son lives with his fiancée closer to the fires than I did and I had been fearful and helpless that their lives could be in danger, along with their lovely brand new home. Thankfully, that was not the case but my son said he could clearly see the fires in the distance.

Driving the fires had been a wind speed of 62 miles per hour and temperatures of 117 degrees Celsius.

This disastrous event will go down in Victoria's history as the most lives lost in a bushfire and become known as "Black Saturday" in Australia.

Let's hope that today's Inquiry will reveal facts that have been up till now remained undiscovered.  Another hope is that the arsonists are caught and charged with mass murder.

Sources

Department of Sustainability and Environment
Ash Wednesday 1983
[Uncredited]

The New York Times
Australia Police Confirm Arson Role in Wildfires
- Meraiah Foley

Wikipedia
February 2009 Bushfires
[Uncredited]

Image Sources

The New York Times
Australia Police Confirms Arson Role in Wildfires
- Scott Barbur/Getty Images

The Herald Son
Those We Have Loved
- Chris Scott

Boston.com
Bushfires in Victoria, Australia
- AP

Boston.com
Bushfires in Victoria, Australia
- William West/AFP/Getty Images

Boston.com
Bushfires in Victoria, Australia
- Brandon Thorne/Getty Images

Boston.com
Bushfires in Victoria, Australia
- Reuters/Mick Tsikas

Boston.com
Bushfires in Victoria, Australia
- Scott Barbur/Getty Images

Boston.com
Bushfires in Victoria, Australia
- Lucas Dawson/Getty Images

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