Read what the leading fire management organisations have to say about the biggest bushfires since white settlement. Why did it happen? Could it happen again? How would they fight the 1939 fires now? How do you rebuild devastated communities?

Go to the Firefighters

Read what groundbreaking scientists in the area of bushfire research have to say about Black Friday. Can bushfires create their own tornados? Can clouds of eucalyptus gas travel in front of the fire exploding into balls of flame? How does a 200 km fire front behave?

Go to the Scientists

Read what leading historians on the Black Friday bushfires have to say about the 1939 fires? The most powerful stories from that January come from the people living in those forests. Did they realise their extreme danger? Were they prepared? How did they behave when the fires bore down upon them?

Go to the Historians

Read what the Premier of Victoria and the Commissioner of the 2003 bushfire inquiry has to say about the 1939 fires. Did Judge Leonard Stretton’s Royal Commission report into the 1939 fires get it right? Why were there so many deaths? What have we learnt from the tragedy of Black Friday?

Go to the Decision Makers