What has Australia learned from Black Saturday?
- Written by Kevin Tolhurst, Senior Lecturer, Fire Ecology and Management, University of Melbourne
Black Saturday was a day like no other; it will be forever remembered in the history of bushfire disasters in Australia. The fires burned about 300,000 hectares in a single day; 173 human lives were lost and more than 2,000 houses were destroyed in one afternoon.
Australia was shocked at the scale of the destruction. Questions were soon being asked...