Abstract
THE drought of the early summer, which affected all south and south-eastern Australia, was followed by a heat wave in the first fortnight of January which reached sufficient intensity to reduce leaf litter in the forest to tinder dryness. The usual firing by cattle graziers had been in progress for some months over all the rough mountain grazing land which lies to the north of the prime forest belt. Northern and north-western winds of great force set in during the first week of January and fanned the sporadic fires into conflagrations which swept the country wherever forest existed and also much of the cleared grass lands where the stock had left enough herbage to carry a fire.
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Bush Fires in Victoria. Nature 144, 97–100 (1939). https://doi.org/10.1038/144097a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/144097a0