Ash Wednesday Fires - Events of 16 February

Events of 16 February

Wednesday 16 February— Ash Wednesday on the Christian calendar—dawned as another unrelentingly hot, dry day. The weather early on Ash Wednesday was complex and did not signify how the day would develop. A front separated hot, dry air coming in from the interior to the north, from cooler air moving eastwards from the Southern Ocean. Ahead of the front were hot, turbulent, gale force northerly winds. Temperatures around Melbourne and Adelaide quickly rose above 43°C, with winds gusting up to 100 km/h and relative humidity plunging to as low as 6 per cent. From mid-morning, McArthur's fire danger index was in excess of 100 in several places in Victoria and South Australia. It would be one of the worst fire weather days in south-east Australia since the disastrous Black Friday bushfires in 1939.

The first fire was reported at 11:30 am at McLaren Flat, south of Adelaide. Within hours, multiple reports of breaking fires quickly began to deluge Victoria's and South Australia's emergency services. In Victoria alone, 180 fires were reported, eight of which became major fires. At one stage, the entire Melbourne metropolitan area was encircled by an arc of fire. Property loss began early in the afternoon, particularly in the Adelaide Hills, east of Adelaide and the Dandenong Ranges, east of Melbourne.

Murray Nicoll, a journalist from radio station 5DN and resident of the Adelaide Hills, reported live from his local area where five people died:

Mount Lofty Summit Road is lined by a number of historic mansions, like Eurilla, Carminow and Mount Lofty House. The flames roared up the tower of Carminow like a chimney, destroying everything, including the wonderful gardens. Next door at Eurilla, Kym and Julie Bonython lost all of their worldly possessions, including antiques, paintings, and most regrettably, Kym Bonython's extensive Jazz Record collection. He saved only his favourite motorbike. At this time, this part of the Adelaide Hills was still not connected to the mains water supply, so all of the houses had only petrol powered pumps and rainwater tanks. "The petrol in the emergency pump just vaporised with the heat" said Kym Bonython. "We could do nothing except watch the place burn". Across the road at Pine Lodge (formerly the Mt Lofty Tea Rooms), the resident rolled out the property's fire hose, connected it to the working diesel pump, only to find that embers were already burning numerous holes in the hose, rendering it useless. Down the road at Mount Lofty House, Mr and Mrs James Morgan lost $150,000 worth of furniture and artwork, which they had moved into the huge house only a fortnight before the fires, when they purchased the property. At 3:15 pm on Wednesday, Mr and Mrs Morgan went to pick up their children for the local school and kindergarten. "Three quarters of an hour later the roof was burning", said Mr Morgan. Flames across the road and road blocks prevented the family from returning to the house, until it was burnt to the ground. "it's worth nothing now", said Mr Morgan. All of these houses have since been restored and are privately owned. Mount Lofty House has since been turned into a boutique hotel. St Michael's House, a mansion converted to an Anglican monastery in the 1940s, was also burnt in the fires, but not restored and the whole site has since been cleared, leaving only the ruins of the gate house.