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Ash Wednesday fires
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The Ash Wednesday bushfires were a series of bushfires that occurred in south-eastern Australia on 16 February 1983. Within twelve hours, more than 180 fires fanned by winds of up to 110km per hour (68 mph) caused widespread destruction across the states of Victoria and South Australia. Years of severe drought and extreme weather combined to create one of Australia’s worst fire days in a century. The fires became the deadliest bushfire disaster in Australian history—a title it held until the 2009 Victorian bushfires.
In Victoria, 47 people died, while in South Australia there were 28 deaths.
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The Ash Wednesday bushfires were a series of bushfires that occurred in south-eastern Australia on 16 February 1983. Within twelve hours, more than 180 fires fanned by winds of up to 110km per hour (68 mph) caused widespread destruction across the states of Victoria and South Australia. Years of severe drought and extreme weather combined to create one of Australia’s worst fire days in a century. The fires became the deadliest bushfire disaster in Australian history—a title it held until the 2009 Victorian bushfires.
In Victoria, 47 people died, while in South Australia there were 28 deaths. This included 14 CFA and 3 CFS volunteer firefighters who died across both states that day. Many fatalities were as a result of firestorm conditions caused by a sudden and violent wind change in the evening which rapidly changed the direction and size of the fire front. The speed and ferocity of the flames, aided by abundant fuels and a landscape immersed in smoke, made fire suppression and containment impossible. In many cases, residents fended for themselves as fires broke communications, cut off escape routes and severed electricity and water supplies. Up to 8,000 people were evacuated in Victoria at the height of the crisis and a state of disaster was declared for the first time in South Australia’s history.
Ash Wednesday is one of Australia’s costliest natural disasters. Over 3,700 buildings were destroyed or damaged and 2,545 individuals and families lost their homes. Livestock losses were very high, with over 340,000 sheep, 18,000 cattle and numerous native animals either dead or later destroyed. A total of 4,540 insurance claims were paid totaling A$176 million with a total estimated cost of well over $400 million (1983 values) for both states or $1.3 billion in adjusted terms (2007).
The emergency saw the largest number of volunteers called to duty from across Australia at the same time—an estimated 130,000 firefighters, defence force personnel, relief workers and support crews.
Background
El Niño
As 1982 came to a close, large areas of eastern Australia lay devastated by a prolonged drought thought to be caused by the El Niño climatic cycle. In many places, rainfall over winter and spring had been the lowest on record, and severe water restrictions were imposed in Melbourne in November. On 24 November, the earliest Total Fire Ban in forty years was proclaimed in Victoria. By February 1983, summer rainfall for Victoria was up to 75% less than in previous years. The first week of February was punctuated by intense heat, with record high temperatures experienced on 1 February and 8 February. This combination further destabilised an already volatile fire situation in the forested upland areas surrounding the Victorian and South Australian capitals Melbourne and Adelaide.
Early fire season
Victorian Government firefighting agencies employed extra staff and organised for additional equipment and aircraft to be ready for firefighting over the summer. The first big bushfire occurred on 25 November 1982 and was followed by large fires on 3 December and 13 December 1982. Even before 16 February, fires were already causing destruction in Victoria. An ongoing fire near Cann River in the state's east had been burning uncontrolled for almost a month. Prior to that, a major bushfire on 8 January had taken hold north of Bacchus Marsh in the Wombat State Forest where two Forest Commission workers lost their lives defending Greendale. On 1 February, a fire burnt the north face of Mount Macedon and areas of state forest. Fifty houses were destroyed. These fires were already creating a strain on firefighting resources. In the 1982/83 season, 3500 fires were reported to the CFA in Victoria alone.
The end of summer was already seen as a time of major bushfire threat. Adelaide had previously had an Ash Wednesday bushfire, in 1980, when 51 houses were destroyed.
Dust storm
An ominous sign of things to come occurred on the afternoon of 8 February, when Melbourne was enveloped by a giant dust storm. The dust cloud was over 300 metres high and 500 kilometres long and was composed of thousands of tonnes of topsoil from the drought-ravaged Wimmera and Mallee areas of northwest Victoria. Leading a dry cool change and preceded by record temperatures, the dust storm cut visibility in Melbourne to 100 metres, creating near darkness for almost an hour.
There was also a dust storm in Adelaide on the day of the bushfires.
Events of 16 February
Wednesday 16 February—coincidentally Ash Wednesday on the Christian calendar—dawned as another unrelentingly hot, dry day. The weather early on Ash Wednesday was complex and did not signify how the day would develop. A front separated hot, dry air coming in from the landmass to the north, from cooler air moving eastwards from the Southern Ocean. Ahead of the front was hot, turbulent, gale force northerly winds. Temperatures around Melbourne and Adelaide quickly rose above 43 °C, with winds gusting up to 60 km/h and relative humidity plunging to as low as 6 per cent. From mid-morning, McArthur's fire danger index was in excess of 100 in several places in Victoria and South Australia. It would be one of the worst fire weather days in southeast Australia since the disastrous Black Friday bushfires in 1939.
The first fire was reported at 11:30am at McLaren Flat, south of Adelaide. Within hours, multiple reports of breaking fires quickly began to deluge Victoria's and South Australia's emergency services. In Victoria alone, 180 fires were reported, eight of which became major fires. At one stage, the entire Melbourne metropolitan area was encircled by an arc of fire. Property loss began early in the afternoon, particularly in the Adelaide Hills, east of Adelaide and the Dandenong Ranges, east of Melbourne.
Murray Nicoll, a journalist from radio station 5DN and resident of the Adelaide Hills, reported live from his local area where five people died:
Wind change
The most disastrous factor in the Ash Wednesday fires occurred just before nightfall when a fierce and dry wind change swept across South Australia and Victoria. This abruptly changed the direction and dramatically increased the intensity of the fires. The long corridors of flame that had been driven all day by the strong northerly were suddenly hit by gale force south-westerly winds and became enormous fire fronts, many kilometres wide, reportedly moving faster than 110 km/h.
The near-cyclonic strength of the wind change created an unstoppable firestorm that produced tornado-like fire whirls and fireballs of eucalyptus gas measuring over three metres across. Survivors reported that the roar of the fire front was similar to that of a jet engine, though multiplied fifty, a hundred times. The change in temperature and air pressure was so savage that houses were seen exploding before fire could touch them. A resident of Aireys Inlet, on Victoria's western coast, was quoted:
The freakish conditions spawned unique effects: a car was forced 90m along a road with its handbrake on, burning mattresses were seen hurtling through the air, steaks were cooked well-done in deep freezers, road surfaces bubbled and caught fire and sand liquefied to glass.
CSIRO experts later reported that, from evidence of melted metal, the heat of the fires after the change rose to 2000°C; exceeding that recorded during the Allied bombing of Dresden in World War II. In fact, the Ash Wednesday fires were measured at around 60,000 kilowatts of heat energy per metre, leading to similarities with the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.
Whole townships were obliterated in minutes. In the Dandenong Ranges, the villages of Cockatoo and Upper Beaconsfield were devastated, with twelve volunteer firefighters losing their lives after being trapped by a wall of flame when the wind change struck, while parts of Belgrave Heights (where this fire started) and Belgrave South suffered large areas of property loss.
Most of Macedon and much of historic Mount Macedon to the north west of Melbourne was razed, including many heritage listed 19th century mansions and famed gardens. The morning after Ash Wednesday, popular coastal towns along the Great Ocean Road such as Aireys Inlet, Anglesea and Lorne resembled barren moonscapes. The fire on the coast had been so intense that firefighters were forced to abandon all control efforts and let it burn until it reached the ocean, destroying everything in its path.
The total land area burnt was approximately 2,100 km² (518,921 acres, or 210,000 hectares) in Victoria and 2,080 km² (513,979 acres, or 208,000 hectares) in South Australia. The summer bushfires of 1982/1983 razed approximately 5,200 km² (1,284,000 acres, or 520,000 hectares).
Aftermath
Many of the Victorian fires were thought to have been caused by sparks between short-circuiting power lines, and tree branches connecting with power lines. A systematic review of fire safety was undertaken; areas under high tension pylons were cleared and local domestic lines considered to be at risk were replaced with insulated three-phase supply lines.
In South Australia, an inquest into the fires found that the communication systems used by the Country Fire Service were inadequate and, as a result, the Government radio network was installed, although this did not happen until almost 20 years later. Improvements in weather forecasting, with particular reference to wind changes and fronts, was undertaken by the Bureau of Meteorology. An emergency disaster plan was also legislated known as Displan. Many of the lessons learned in building better homes for fire survival, bush management and emergency response efficiency in analysis of the fires conducted by the CSIRO were to prove vital in later crises, including the 1994 Eastern seaboard and 2003 Canberra fire outbreaks.
A study was conducted into the 32 fatalities (excluding firefighters) that occurred in Victoria. It revealed that 25 were outside their homes, several of whom died in vehicles while attempting to escape the conflagration. It was found that delaying evacuation until the last minute was a common failing.
Legacy
Along with Cyclone Tracy, Ash Wednesday is arguably the natural disaster to have had the greatest impact on the Australian national psyche. For the next quarter century, it was used as the measure for all bushfire emergencies in Australia, most notably the 2003 Canberra bushfires, which experienced very similar severe fire weather. The disaster caused 75 deaths, which is the second highest death toll for a bushfire in Australia. The 2009 Victorian bushfires has since surpassed Ash Wednesday on the list of disasters in Australia by death toll, with 210 confirmed fatalities as of 25 February, 2009—although the 1983 fires still remain the worst in Australian history in terms of property loss.
Over two decades have passed since the disaster, yet victims and their families still suffer the effects of that day. Many psychological studies were undertaken in the months and years after the fire and found that the events left many in the affected communities with the effects of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).
The lasting impact of Ash Wednesday was highlighted in 2008, when its 25th anniversary received much public and media attention. Commemoration sites have been set up in areas that were hit worst by the fires, with museums hosting exhibits inviting survivors to tell their stories.
Areas affected in Victoria
See also
External links
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