A few preliminary observations on "Black Tuesday"

The island of Tasmania, covering 26,383 square miles, lies some 120 miles off the southern coast of Australia. It "has been called 'Isle of Mountains' for, although the highest peaks rise scarcely above 5000 feet, much of the country is extremely rugged and is dissected by deep valleys and precipitous gorges." The flora, while closely related to that of Victoria on the Australian mainland, has strong affinities with the floras of other southern lands -- New Zealand and the south of South America. Eucalyptus forests which are particularly vulnerable to burning are found over most of the eastern part of the state. However, the population is so spare (about 14 persons per square mile) and the areas removed from the coast are so little developed that facilities for combating and getting access to potentially dangerous fires are rather poor. On Tuesday, February 7, 1967, all of these factors combined to produce the most destructive fires in the history of Tasmania. Extremely dry weather during the preceding two months had created a serious incendiary hazard throughout the state, so that when isolated blazes were reported during the early morning hours, the problem was not unexpected. These first fire reports were from the quasi-mountainous areas in the southeastern quarter of the island, generally within 10 miles of Hobart, the capital of Tasmania.