1967 Tasmanian bushfire
The 1967 Tasmanian Bushfire , also known as Tasmania Black Tuesday in Australia , occurred on February 7, 1967. The bushfire killed 62 people, injured 900 and destroyed more than 7,000 buildings. It was the most devastating bushfire in Tasmania to date .
Expansion of the bushfires
Within five hours, 110 individual bushfires developed over an area of 2,640 km² in southern Tasmania. The fires extended from Hamilton and Bothwell to the D'Entrecasteaux Canal and to Snug. They caused great destruction of the agricultural land along the Canal, Derwent Valley and Huon Valley . They also destroyed forests, infrastructure and private property around Mount Wellington and in the small towns along the Derwent River in eastern Hobart .
Deaths and damages
The most devastating fire started at Hobart , which also reached the city. The fire killed a total of 62 people. Were destroyed u. a. 1,293 houses and over 1,700 other buildings, 80 bridges, 4,800 power lines and 1,500 vehicles. It is estimated that 62,000 animals including 500 horses, 1,350 cattle, 60,000 sheep, 24,000 chickens and 600 pigs were burned. The total damage was 40 million AUD appreciated. Based on today's purchasing power, this would correspond to over AUD 450 million.
reasons
Late winter and early spring in 1966 brought wetness to southeast Tasmania, which resulted in heavy vegetation growth. However, in November 1966, the driest eight months in Tasmania since 1885 began. Therefore, in late January 1967, the vegetation in this area dried up. Although January was a cool month, a heat wave set in in February, causing various uncontrolled bushfires to broke out in the area on February 7, 1967. Some of these fires went out on their own. Shortly before noon on February 7th, however, the combination of extremely high temperatures (up to 39 ° C), very low humidity and very strong winds from the northwest led to the catastrophe.
Although this fire was the most devastating in Tasmanian history, the meteorological conditions were not entirely unusual. The McArthur's Report notes that similar conditions had occurred three or four times in the previous 70 years.
Comparison with other Australian bushfires
This bushfire is one of the worst natural disasters to have occurred in Australia in terms of loss of life and property. It is comparable to the 1939 bushfire, the Black Friday bushfire in Victoria , in which 72 people lost their lives, and the Ash Wednesday bushfire in Victoria and South Australia , with 75 dead and 2,000 homes destroyed. The 2009 bushfire in Victoria , called the Black Saturday Bushfire , which burned on February 7, 2009 in north Melbourne in Victoria, killed 173 people.
memorial
A memorial was erected at Snug, in the parish of Kingborough , in the south of Hobart . A plaque with the names of the 62 people killed was placed on the brick fireplace of a burned building. The memorial reports on the fire events of 1967 and fire protection measures. It is surrounded by a garden with fire-resistant native plants.
literature
- Richard Whitaker: Australia's Natural Disasters. Reed New Holland, 2005, ISBN 1-877069-38-8 .
Further literature
- Chambers, DM and Brettingham-Moore, CG (1967) The bush fire disaster of 7 February 1967: report and summary of evidence (excluding appendices) Solicitor-General (Mr. DM Chambers) and the Master and Registrar of the Supreme Court (Mr CG Brettingham-Moore) Office of the Solicitor-General. Hobart, Tasmania.
- Wettenhall, RL (1975) Bushfire disaster: an Australian community in crisis Sydney: Angus & Robertson. ISBN 0-207-12921-5
Individual evidence
- ↑ Nic Price: Four decades after Black Tuesday, top firefighter warns ... Repeat of fire horror feared , The Examiner. February 7, 2007. Retrieved on February 10, 2007. ( Page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ^ Richard Whitaker: Australia's Natural Disasters. P. 134.
- ^ Richard Whitaker: Australia's Natural Disasters. P. 141.
- ↑ Summary of Major Bushfires in Tasmania at home.iprimus.com.au, accessed December 2, 2011.
- ^ The high cost of natural disasters in Australia. ( Memento of the original from November 12, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on brokersclimb.com, accessed December 2, 2011.
- ↑ sres.anu.edu.au
