30/11/2015 Photo a Day Fire
As tomorrow is the first day of summer we Australians prepare for our bushfire season although South Australia and Western Australia have already had major fires. Here is Wikipedia's definition of Bushfire---
Bushfires in Australia are frequent events during the hotter months of the year, due to
Australia's mostly hot, dry climate. Each year, such fires impact extensive areas. While they can cause property damage and loss of human life, certain native
flora in Australia
have evolved to rely on bushfires as a means of reproduction, and fire
events are an interwoven and an essential part of the ecology of the
continent. For thousands of years,
Indigenous Australians have used fire to foster grasslands for hunting and to clear tracks through dense bush.
Major
firestorms that result in severe loss of life are often named based on the day on which they occur, such as
Ash Wednesday and
Black Saturday. Some of the most intense, extensive and deadly bushfires commonly occur during droughts and
heat waves, such as the
2009 Southern Australia heat wave, which precipitated the conditions during the 2009
Black Saturday bushfires in which 173 people lost their lives. Other major conflagrations include the 1983
Ash Wednesday bushfires, the
2003 Eastern Victorian alpine bushfires and the 2006 December Bushfires.
Victoria has seen the majority of the deadliest and largest bushfires in
Australia, most notably the 2009
Black Saturday fires, where 173 people were killed, around 2,000 homes and structures were destroyed, towns were gutted, and some, such as
Marysville, were destroyed.
