INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
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Black Saturday was Australia's deadliest bushfire event
Ten
years ago, Australia experienced its worst-ever bushfire disaster when 173 people died across the state of Victoria
Immediately branded "one of the darkest days in Australia's peacetime history", Black Saturday has left a profound legacy
Sharon Verghis reports."It was like the gates of hell
There is no other way to describe it."For Tony Thomas, 7 February 2009 began as another ordinary day
It had been a summer of record-breaking temperatures, prompting days of safety warnings.But Mr Thomas wasn't overly concerned; they had had
scorching days like this before.In the lush, peaceful hills on the outskirts of tiny Marysville, about 90km (55 miles) north-east of
Melbourne, he and wife Penni had carved out a fruitful life running a bed and breakfast on a 60-acre property
His in-laws had arrived for a birthday lunch
It was a pleasant gathering, despite the suffocating heat
But in the late afternoon, they spotted smoke in the west
Going for a closer look, they saw fire.Image:The remnants of Australia’s worst day of fires"It came out of the forest behind us on the
other side - at 100k [kilometres] it just roared towards us," Mr Thomas tells the TheIndianSubcontinent.At 18.45, the fire hit - "and pretty
Mr Thomas's family and the BB guests ran for shelter in the house as he, his brother-in-law and an employee battled the fire
It was effectively three men with buckets and garden hoses against a roaring, wind-whipped blaze.At 21.30, another wind change swung the
fire towards the hay shed: "That threw flaming hay bombs at us for the next hour or so, massive embers and hay landing on us.""When you've
got 20 to 30 metre-trees burning and the flames are well above that, like a huge ball" his voice trails off
"Why people say gates of hell is because everything turned from light to dark very quickly - the sun got blocked out by the smoke
"The only thing you could see is the glow of the fire through the smoke
We only had large tea towels which we were wetting down constantly and wrapping around our faces so we could breathe."Nearby, David Baetge
was also fighting for survival on his property near the town of Buxton, directly adjacent to a large state park
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The town of Kinglake and surrounding regions were devastated
Armed with a comprehensive fire plan and previous firefighting experience, he had seen the smoke but chosen to stay
Like Mr Thomas, the decision would almost cost him his life.At about 1830, Mr Baetge spotted fire on top of peaks about 3km (2 miles) away -
with what he estimated to be 100m-high fireballs.Even for a bushfire veteran, he was shocked at the speed of the fire as it raced towards
"The sky was iridescent red with a deafening roar like standing next to a 747 jet," he would later recall in his blog."It was like being
inside a cocoon of smoke with a maximum visibility range of about 30m and the whole of this hemisphere in every direction was glowing cherry
red." He said it was "like being sandblasted - but with burning embers".All through this once-bucolic landscape, others faced similar
Karen Curnow was among them
As her house caught fire, she fled in her car with her old dog, hurtling over and around burning trees, guilt-struck at having to leaving
her panicked horses behind
Image:'I escaped the inferno - then found my horse'Nearby in Kinglake West, local artist Michelle Bolmat was also making a mad dash to
safety."The ash started to fall, and the darkness came… it became completely black everywhere," she tells the TheIndianSubcontinent
A tree came down in front of her; but as the heat started to build, she revved her engine and drove over it
"I looked back and saw the fire coming."All four got through that nightmare night
But when the sun rose the next morning, it was eerily quiet
The lush landscape was gone."Our world turned from beautiful colours to black and grey," Mr Thomas recalls
"There wasn't a spot on the property that wasn't burnt and it was the same across the whole area."Kinglake suffered the heaviest toll, with
In Marysville, 39 people died - 34 of them locals - and the town was effectively obliterated."Probably 22 of those 34 were friends of ours,"
Mr Thomas says.Image copyrightGetty ImagesImage caption
Like Marysville, Kinglake had rows of buildings destroyed
After the final embers were doused (the Black Saturday fires continued to 14 March), the true scale of the fires was revealed.About
400 blazes had burned, most sparked by faulty power lines and lightning, but there were also cases of arson.A total of 173 people died -
Australia's deadliest ever bushfire event
It left several hundreds more injured, more than 2,000 homes destroyed, and more than 7,500 people displaced
The RSPCA estimated that up to one million animals died
It was unprecedented - even for a country long used to bushfires.Over the years, Australia has been hit with several deadly blazes
But the Black Saturday fires of 2009 were singular in their ferocity - equal to 1,500 atomic bombs
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The fires scorched houses and vehicles
So what made this event
so severeKevin Parkyn, a Bureau of Meteorology senior forecaster, says it was a combination of record temperatures, unusually strong,
howling north-westerly winds in excess of 100km/h (60 mph), and a tinder-dry landscape courtesy of a long-running drought
In Melbourne, the temperature reached 46.4C
"That's a record for Melbourne in 100 years," Mr Parkyn says
"When you went outside, there was just this blast of hot air - it was like having a hairdryer to the face." No firefighting force stood a
chance, especially when the blazes hit Australia's highly flammable eucalypt forests, he says
Spot fires sprang up kilometres downwind of the main front
"And all these fires joined together to become this massive fire area - which we call pyrocumulonimbus - that started generating its own
lightning," Mr Parkyn says
"And of course, lightning started more fires." The result was intense temperatures capable of melting metal: "It was almost like a living,
breathing beast."Image copyrightGetty ImagesImage caption
Firefighters continued to battle blazes in the weeks after
Black Saturday
Did climate change play a role Mr Parkyn refers to his scientific training: he says it would be hard to say
there's no link given the record temperatures now being experienced in Australia in particular, and the frequency of extreme weather
disasters internationally
He points to last year's California fires, the US state's deadliest, as one example.The damage from Black Saturday was also exacerbated by
Risk Frontiers, a research centre, has estimated that nearly a million addresses in Australia are located less than 100m from bushland.In
the aftermath, a royal commission inquiry was announced, resulting in widespread changes in bushfire preparation and protocols
The inquiry put the financial cost of the disaster at A$4.4bn (£2.4bn; $3.14bn).Survivors also secured a A$500m payout - the biggest class
action settlement in Australian legal history
But this didn't account for the invisible toll.Image copyrightGetty ImagesImage caption
A farmer struggles with the
conditions on his property
The Beyond Bushfires report, which surveyed more than 1,000 people affected by the fires, found
evidence of significant mental health issues including depression, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and severe psychological distress
The rates were significantly higher than what would be expected in the general population, it found
Lead researcher Prof Lisa Gibbs, from the University of Melbourne, likens the disaster to a fractured window: the cracks spread far and
wide, magnified by the small rural populations
She has seen a measurable increase in domestic violence along with mental health issues.Out of the embers, however, some good has also come
Australia is now significantly better prepared for fires, with new measures including redesigned building codes and improved warning
messages.Internationally, Australian researchers are now leading the way in many firefighting technologies - from tanker perseveration
strategies to a world-leading electrical-fault study
The Beyond Bushfires report is now used internationally.Image copyrightGetty ImagesImage caption
A bushfire-ravaged
region, pictured two years after Black Saturday
Regeneration and growth has taken place on a more personal level as well
Mr Thomas is amazed by the resilience of the locals
Communities have rebuilt, the bush has regenerated.For Karen Curnow says it gave her a chance to start anew: "I don't see myself as a victim
I just consider myself a very lucky person."This week, solemn events have marked the anniversary of the tragedy
But for many scarred directly by Black Saturday, there will be relief when Thursday is over and people can move on, Mr Thomas says
Marysville is slowly recovering but "it will never be the same town"."But as a community we stick together," he says
We're still standing."Additional reporting by Simon Atkinson and Hywel Griffith.
