We went to do our normal bush walk near Kinglake as we had not been there since the fires of Black Saturday. We were not prepared for the devastation that we saw. The following is a brief detail of the fires that destroyed large areas of Victoria on Saturday the 7th Feb 2009.

The fires destroyed over 2,200 houses, 3,500 structures in total and damaged thousands more. Many towns north-east of the state capital Melbourne were badly damaged or almost completely destroyed, including Kinglake, Marysville, Narbethong, Strathewen and Flowerdale. Many houses in the towns of Steels Creek, Humevale, Wandong, St Andrews, Callignee, and Koornalla were also destroyed or damaged, with several fatalities recorded at each location. The fires affected 78 individual townships in total and left over 7,500 people homeless, many of whom sought temporary accommodation, much of it donated in the form of spare rooms, caravans, tents and beds in community relief centres.

The majority of the fires ignited and spread on a day of some of the worst bushfire-weather conditions ever recorded. Temperatures in the mid to high 40s (Celsius) and wind speeds in excess of 100km/h, precipitated by an intense heat wave, fanned the fires over large distances and areas, creating several large firestorms and pyrocumulus systems, particularly north-east of Melbourne, where a single firestorm accounted for 120 of the 173 deaths. A cool change hit the state in the early evening, bringing with it gale-force south-westerly winds in excess of 120km/h. This change in wind direction caused the long eastern flanks of the fires to become massive fire fronts that burned with incredible speed and ferocity towards towns that had earlier escaped the fires.
source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Saturday_Fires