BLACK SATURDAY, as it will likely be called, has become Victoria's second worst bushfire, killing more than the 1983 Ash Wednesday fire and behind only the Black Friday toll of 1939.
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The 1939 fire burnt more than 2 million hectares, affecting every part of the state, and had an official toll of 71 dead. But the historian Geoffrey Blainey said yesterday the real count was probably considerably higher because of bush dweller and swagmen victims never counted.
This weekend's bushfires have a confirmed toll of at least 65. The Ash Wednesday fires killed 47 in Victoria (plus another 28 in South Australia), and burnt 210,000 hectares and 2000 homes.
The second worst summer in terms of fire casualties, which has not become part of the public memory like Black Friday and Ash Wednesday, is the February 1926 bushfire that killed 60 as it swept through Gippsland and ravaged the sawmilling towns of Warburton and Powelltown. According to the Department of Sustainability and Environment, 31 people died at Warburton on February 14.
In the summer of 1943-44, fires in the western districts and Gippsland claimed 51 lives, with 13 killed on February 14 when the Yallourn open-cut mine caught fire. In terms of record area burnt, the Black Thursday blaze of 1851 destroyed more than a quarter of the state.
