Talk:Ash Wednesday bushfires

A fact from this article was featured on Wikipedia's Main Page in the On this day section on February 16, 2011, February 16, 2013, February 16, 2016, and February 16, 2019.

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1980 Fires too[edit]

There were Ash Wednesday fires in 1980 too. They didn't cause loss of life in SA IIRC, but they were significant. One fire started from the Heathfield rubbish dump, causing an inquiry (or inquest, if I'm wrong about the loss of life).

Mark Hurd 14:23, 15 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Causality[edit]

The cause of the fires was probably (unfortuantly) fire bugs. A prevailing reason for their intensity may have been El Nino.

Mark Hurd 14:23, 15 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Possible Wiki Links[edit]

I am currently testing an automated Wikipedia link suggester. Here are the results of running it on this article:

Can link natural disaster: ...dnesday fires' were an Australian natural disaster which occurred in February 1983, and af...
Can link Dandenong Ranges: ... of Victoria, including the Macedon and Dandenong Ranges, as well as the Otways in the sea....
Can link Ash Wednesday: ... as well as the Otways in the sea. The Ash Wednesday fires were caused by the El Nino drough...
Can link South Australia: ...was 75 lives - 47 in Victoria and 28 in South Australia. In the Dandenong Ranges, 17 firefighte...

Notes: The article text has not been changed in any way; Some of these links may be wrong, some may be right; You can leave positive feedback or negative feedback; Please feel free to delete this section from the talk page. -- Nickj 02:50, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)

New Content[edit]

I have added information obtained from and linked to the Victorian Government Department of Sustainability and Environment. I note that a previous historical edit removed reference to Mount Macedon on the grounds that the fires there occurred two weeks prior to Ash Wednesday: this is not my recollection. I do not dispute that there may have been fires two weeks earlier; however, sadly, they returned on that dreadful day and destroyed the memorial cross at the top of Mount Macedon and many fine homes. See http://users.ssc.net.au/gisbornecfa/History.htm adamm 12:51, 18 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

South Australian Impact[edit]

I notice this article heavily focuses on Victoria. I can only assume that it began life as an article on the Ash Wednesday Bushfires there. Considering the scope of the fires in SA (almost the same number of acres burnt) and the great loss of life the article should be expanded out. Any help in this suggestion? Ozdaren 13:41, 13 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I well remember Murray Nicoll describing his own house burning down during his radio news report. The transcript of his broadcast would be a good source of information. --TrogWoolley 23:08, 9 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. Too bad he is a terrible journalist now :) Muzzamo 01:22, 10 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Map[edit]

Since the fires covered such a large area, perhaps a map of SE Australia showing the extent of the fires would be handy. - 52 Pickup 08:24, 19 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Images?[edit]

I have suspicions that a few of the images here (including the infobox one) are unfree. Any thoughts? dihydrogen monoxide (H₂0) 09:24, 22 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

As long as due credit is given, what's the problem? This is an encyclopedia, it's not like anyone's making money from it. Free publicity for the creator. Nick carson (talk) 06:33, 13 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Rewrite[edit]

I have rewritten the intro to the article using some of the more primary sources for this event. I have found that there is some confusion even in the official accounts for the Ash Wednesday disaster about exact figures for land area burnt, homes destroyed, and even the death toll. Hopefully the article will become as accurate and consistent as possible. Cheers Admella1859 (talk) 12:39, 25 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Version 0.7[edit]

This article has been nominated for Version 0.7 of the offline Wikipedia release but did not meet the standards for importance. It has been put on Wikipedia:Release_Version_Nominations/Held_nominations for further review. Please see that page for details.

The article is quite good, and the topic is interesting, but I think it falls just a little short in importance to warrant inclusion in 0.7. Walkerma (talk) 02:57, 19 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Dust storm on the day[edit]

I distinctly remember a dust storm in Adelaide early on Ash Wednesday, and the local paper commenting that the dust storm was initially going to be the front page story until the bushfires broke out. But perhaps my mind is playing tricks on me, so I'm happy to have it removed until a reference is found (perhaps in the archives of one of the Adelaide media). Peter Ballard (talk) 02:20, 23 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I've re-inserted it now that I've found a better reference - an SA govt publication. Peter Ballard (talk) 02:39, 23 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That's better with the new ref and being place-specific, the old reference seemed to conflate two different events specific to the Macedon region. Melburnian (talk) 02:57, 23 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I also remember being kept in at Primary School when the Melbourne Dust Storm hit because it was too dangerous to let kids walk home in it. The sky turned black at 2 or 3 in the afternoon. --BenM (talk) 18:26, 18 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

McArthur's fire danger index[edit]

I see mention of this on the page, but cannot find anything further about it on wikipedia (or elsewhere really; Googling didn't help). Would some kind soul explain further? It seems to me like this sort of thing is the stuff that ought to be (at least summarized) in an encyclopedia... Donal Fellows (talk) 14:12, 9 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

McArthur's fire danger index was developed by CSIRO scientist A.G McArthur in the 1960's to measure the speed and spread of fire in forest and grasslands. 1 being a very slow and easy to control fire and 100 meaning a fire that is impossible to control. Google book search turns up quite a bit of info on this. Cheers Admella1859 (talk) 02:57, 10 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Rename[edit]

I propose that the name of this article be changed from "Ash Wednesday fires" to "Ash Wednesday bushfires". I attempted to move myself but there is a redirect in place. Can someone with experience in redirect removals please help? I'm not holding by breath. Nick carson (talk) 06:11, 3 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Early Fire Season[edit]

In the Early Fire Season section it lists the dates of several fires, but no location and no damage. Not much help.KhProd1 (talk) 09:26, 13 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Assessment comment[edit]

The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:Ash Wednesday bushfires/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.

This article needs improvement with images and maps

Substituted at 01:09, 22 May 2016 (UTC)

Firestorm[edit]

There are several mentions of these fires being firestorms. This is very unlikely given that the fires were fanned by strong winds - firestorms generally form in still conditions with significant amounts of fuel (urban areas rather than bushfires are far more likely to encounter firestorms).

I will try to check the references, but without any specific references indicating there was a firestorm or at least the conditions that describe it (the fire itself creating its own wind in all directions) I think it should be changed to conflagration. Richjhart (talk) 07:26, 10 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Burned areas[edit]

"2,080 km2 (513,979 acres) in South Australia and 9,954 km2 (2,459,687 acres) in Victoria on one day. 5,200 km2 (1,284,948 acres) burnt throughout the 1982/83 season."

These numbers don't seem to add up. How can the area burned in Victoria in one day be less than the area burnt throughout the season? And is the 1982/83 season number supposed to be for just Victoria or for Victoria and South Australia combined? Or even all of Australia? --Khajidha (talk) 16:46, 15 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Cooked steaks[edit]

In the Wind change sub-section, I made this edit. The statements I replaced were written into the article in 2008, by a major contributor to it. It had been tagged with {{dubious}} since December 2015. The assertions, to do with steaks cooked well-done in freezers, etc. were tacked onto a report of a (lone) flying mattress, as if sourced by the same, already existing, cite. The ref for the flying mattress makes no mention of steaks, bubbling road surfaces or sand melted into glass.^[1] For now, I have only removed the mention of sand and steaks. I believe the road surface statement will have sources, which I will attempt to find and add.

There are now a few mentions of well-done steaks in the aftermath of Ash Wednesday to be found when performing an online search. All, from what I can see, come from WP—in an instance of citogenesis— and none would be WP:RS. Just wanting to explain, for the record; hope that is ok with other editors. Let me know if not. Thanks. AukusRuckus (talk) 03:23, 8 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

References

^ Bureau of Meteorology. "Climate Education: Ash Wednesday, February 1983". Australian Government. Archived from the original on 8 August 2013. Retrieved 10 May 2008.

[1] Bureau of Meteorology. "Climate Education: Ash Wednesday, February 1983". Australian Government. Archived from the original on 8 August 2013. Retrieved 10 May 2008.

[1]