News

Making sense of the 2009 Victorian bushfires: a historical perspective

Tom Griffiths (ANU, author of Forests of Ash)

RSSS History Program Seminar Thursday, 12 March, at 3.30 p.m., McDonald Rm, Menzies Library, ANU (Building 2 Map ref D3 http://campusmap.anu.edu.au/largemap.asp )

The 2009 fires were 'unprecedented', as many commentators have said. They erupted at the end of a record heatwave and there seems little doubt that this was a fire exacerbated by climate change. But it is the recurrent realities that are more striking. For those of us who know the history, the most haunting aspect of this tragedy is its familiarity. The 2009 bushfires were 1939 all over again, laced with 1983. The same images, the same stories, the same words and phrases, and the same frightening and awesome natural force that we find so hard to remember and perhaps unconsciously strive to forget. It is a recurrent nightmare. We know this phenomenon, we know the specific contours of the event, and we even know how people live and how people die. The climate change scenario is frightening. But even worse is the knowledge that we still have not come to terms with what we have already experienced.

Related: An article by Tom Griffiths in response to the 2009 Victorian bushfires. 'We still have not lived long enough' in Inside Story, 16 February 2009.