
The Eastern Victorian alpine bushfires were a series of
bushfires in 2003 that burnt in the
Alpine National Park and
Mount Buffalo National Park in north-eastern
Victoria, Australia. The bushfire started with eighty-seven fires that were started by
lightning in the north east of Victoria on 8 January 2003. Eight of these fires were unable to be contained and joined to form the largest fire in Victoria since the 1939 "
Black Friday" bushfires.
The main fire burnt over over 59 days before it was contained on 7 March 2003. 41 homes and 213 other structures were destroyed, along with tree bridges, and 10,000 livestock were killed. Thousands of kilometres of fencing was also destroyed. This was the longest running fire until the
2006-07 Great Divide fires.
In early February, at the peak of the fires, around 3,760 people were involved in the fire effort, excluding local
Country Fire Authority
The Country Fire Authority (CFA) is a volunteer fire service responsible for fire suppression, rescues, and response to other accidents and hazards across most of the state Victoria, Australia. CFA comprises over 1,200 brigades organised in 21 ...
brigades. This figure includes 160
Australian Defence Force
The Australian Defence Force (ADF) is the military organisation responsible for the defence of the Commonwealth of Australia and its national interests. It consists of the Royal Australian Navy (RAN), Australian Army, Royal Australian Air Forc ...
staff, over 300 interstate firefighters, 33 alpine firefighting specialists from
New Zealand and 35 personnel from the
United States. In total, 15,725 personnel were directly engaged on fighting these bushfires.
The areas affected included,
Mount Buffalo,
Mount Bogong,
Mount Feathertop
Mount Feathertop is the second-highest mountain in the Australian state of Victoria and is part of the Australian Alps and is located within the Alpine National Park. It rises to and is usually covered in snow from June to September. Unlike m ...
,
Bright,
Dinner Plain,
Benambra
Benambra is a small town 28 kilometres (17 mi) north-east of Omeo and 430 kilometres (267 mi) east of the state capital Melbourne, in the Australian Alps of East Gippsland, Victoria, Australia. Nearby towns incl ...
,
Omeo,
Cobungra,
Shannonvale,
Bundara,
Anglers Rest,
Sunnyside,
Glen Wills, and
Dargo.
See also
*
2003 Canberra bushfires
The 2003 Canberra bushfires caused severe damage to the suburbs and outer areas of Canberra, the capital city of Australia, during 18–22 January 2003. Almost 70% of the Australian Capital Territory's (ACT) pastures, pine plantations, and nat ...
*
2002-03 Australian bushfire season
*
Bushfires in Victoria
The state of Victoria in Australia has had a long history of catastrophic bushfires, the most deadly of these, the Black Saturday bushfires of 2009 claiming 173 lives. Legislation, planning, management and suppression are the responsibilities ...
References
Eastern Victorian alpine bushfires
Eastern Victorian alpine bushfires
2000s in Victoria (state)
2003
File:2003 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: The crew of STS-107 perished when the Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated during reentry into Earth's atmosphere; SARS became an epidemic in China, and was a precursor to SARS-CoV-2; A des ...
Alpine National Park
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