Australian Alps Liaison Committee, May 2006
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- Fire history of the Australian Alps Chapter 1 (PDF – 1.46 MB)
- Fire history of the Australian Alps Chapter 2 (PDF – 1.75 MB)
- Fire history of the Australian Alps Chapter 3 (PDF – 536 KB)
- Fire history of the Australian Alps Chapter 4 (PDF – 894 KB)
- Fire history of the Australian Alps References (PDF – 1.51 MB)
- Areas burnt in the bushfires of 1937 – 1938 – Map (PDF – 356 KB)
- Areas burnt in the bushfires of 1938 – 1939 – Map (PDF – 385 KB)
- Areas burnt in the bushfires of 1951 – 1952 – Map (PDF – 357 KB)
- Areas burnt in the bushfires of 1964 – 1965 – Map (PDF – 357 KB)
- Areas burnt in the bushfires of 1971 – 1972 – Map (PDF – 354 KB)
- Areas burnt in the bushfires of 1977 – 1978 – Map (PDF – 358 KB)
- Areas burnt in the bushfires of 1984 – 1985 – Map (PDF – 361 KB)
- Areas burnt in the bushfires of 1987 – 1988 – Map (PDF – 358 KB)
- Areas burnt in the bushfires of 1990 – 1991 – Map (PDF – 356 KB)
- Areas burnt in the bushfires of 1997 – 1998 – Map (PDF – 358 KB)
- Areas burnt in the bushfires of 2002 – 2003 – Map (PDF – 507 KB)
- Areas burnt in the bushfires of Black Friday 1938 – 1939 – Map (PDF – 476 KB)
Introduction
Natural disasters such as droughts and bushfires could be seen as something core to the way Australians view themselves. As a young nation of people discarded by the British Empire, there was perhaps a kind of inevitability about the idea that God himself would occasionally torment them with such evils. The idea that they were not necessarily freak catastrophes but more the natural order of things for this dry continent was a long term perspective that would take many generations to gain. Today, with two centuries of history, there is still a widespread expectation that with certain simple management practices the risk of bushfires can be permanently done away with.
Whilst the effects of a fire (or a severe drought for that matter) are often disastrous, better understanding of the scale of what is ‘normal’ for an area may be very beneficial in improving planning to reduce unnecessary loss, both in a social and environmental sense. Collating the fire histories of the Australian Alps provides an opportunity to give a sense of scale and patterns to both planners and researchers.