page_title: 2009 Victorian bushfires
section_title: Heat wave
hierarchical_section_title: 2009 Victorian bushfires / Background / Heat wave
caption_attribution_description: English: A house damaged by bushfires in the Kinglake complex, in Yarra Glen. Photo taken by myself with verbal permission of the owner, February 10 2009.
context_page_description: The 2009 Victorian bushfires also called Black Saturday, where more than 400 bushfires that started in Victoria, Australia on February 7, 2009. The fires caused Australia's highest ever loss of life from a bushfire. Police say that 173 people died, and 414 people were taken to hospitals with bad burns. At first the death toll was thought to be 210, but forensic tests have shown there were 173 people killed and the death toll was revised.
  The fires burnt down at least 2,029 homes, 3,500 buildings in total and damaged thousands. Many towns north-east of the state capital Melbourne were badly damaged or almost completely destroyed, including the Victorian towns of Kinglake, Marysville, Narbethong, Strathewen, and Flowerdale. Many houses in the Victorian towns of Steels Creek, Humevale, Wandong, St Andrews, Callignee, and Koornalla were also destroyed or damaged. There were people killed at each town. The fires affected 78 towns and left about 7,500 people homeless. More than 4,000 firemen and women worked to control and stop the fires. They were still burning more than two weeks after they started.
context_section_description: Starting at the end of January, south east Australia had days of very hot weather, called a heatwave. The heatwave was caused by a slow moving high-pressure system over the Tasman Sea, a big Tropical Cyclone off the north west Australian coast, and a monsoon trough over northern Australia. This caused hot tropical air to travel down over south eastern Australia.
  The February fires started on the hottest day ever in Victoria, where temperature records have been kept since 1859. On 6 February 2009 – the day before the fires - Premier of Victoria John Brumby told people that very hot weather was coming, and that there was a big danger of bushfires. He told people to be very careful. Premier Brumby also said that it would be the "worst day of fire conditions in the history of the state".
caption: Burnt house at Yarra Glen, Victoria
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