Ash Wednesday - 1983
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- Опубліковано 10 лют 2025
- On the summer of 16 February 1983 during a massive drought and extreme weather session unleashed one of Australia's worst fire disasters in the 20th century. 75 people dead in Victoria and South Australia and a total of 2,676 were injured. This video is a tribute to the victims and the all the fire-fighters during Ash Wednesday. Disclaimer: I do not own this video and its viewed for educational purposes only not for profit.
The narration in this is so beautifully eloquent. Lots of documentaries in times past had this style, kind of a bummer they don’t make them like this any more.
Yeah this style is far more interesting than what they do today. I'd rather this over interviews with random people who experienced it.
People are not so intelligent now. They try to appeal to a wider audience on TV by using more basic language.
There are many such as this on UTUBE!
Blame modern yanky influence.
This is all before my time, but I live in the Adelaide hills now and everyone is terrified of this happening again. I wanted to watch this to educate myself on the event. Thank you for uploading it.
When you hear the train coming its already to late.on a postive note,back then MFS trucks couldnt pump and run like CFS trucks.the equipment is much better now.but leave early dont look back
If the Adelaide Hills go up Canadiankazz get out early we won't have enough units to stop it
Everyone I knew in the Adelaide Hills was so knowledgeable on the subject it was fantastic they understood how fires work and didn't just leave it to the fire brigade
I was in the Emergency services on this day in Adelaide. I seen the fires in Greenhill and Mt Lofty, it looked like the gates of hell. This day was extraordinary, but those fires have been happening for centuries before we Europeans Built into bushland. Unfortunately it is the nature of the Australian bush that the cycles of out with the old and in with the new come to pass.
It is we that are in the way now, building in places that never meant to have dwellings. The oils in pines and even green Eucalyptus is explosive like a fire accelerant, and burns savagely and hotter than hell itself.
I hate to forecast this, but nothing has changed from this time, and it is bound to repeat again at some time in the future. The best thing is be prepared !
Thankyou for posting this. I'll add a little tribute to my uncle that helped save my grandfathers dairy near Ashbourne that day. His name was Malcolm Datson from East Side Truck & Farm in Murray Bridge. At the time he had a HQ Statesman and he had to lock it in first just to get through the walls of flames along wattle flat road to grandpas dairy. There was little oxygen for the engine to keep going due to the immense amount of fire. It blistered the paint on the drivers side of the car. He had to take back roads to get there as the major highways were closed. Once he made it he found grandpa with a few belongings in his ute ready to leave but once Malcolm showed up they went out with wet hession bags and kept the fire back from the buildings and the dairy. Together they managed to save everything. We visited about 3 weeks later and we found a car in the paddock that had broken down when spotlighting and even though fire didn't get to it by over 100 metres, everything that was alloy was melted on the ground. We visited some more friends in the area and saw houses where their windows had melted to glass pools on the ground. Within a few months after the rain came everything came back to normal but the scares remain for the people that went through it.
19:08 - that is me walking to the door of my truck on the right. The 4 trucks in the clip are from left to right, Geelong City Fire Brigade, Highton FB, North Geelong FB and mine is Geelong West FB.
Thanks for fighting those horrific fires mate.
Yeah thanks mate
I was in the Geelong City Volunteer brigade for 3 years when i was young.
Might have just finished as these fires started.
I spotted the Fluro coloured Fire Truck.
Thought that might be the Geelong City truck.
It would have been almost brand new then.
I still remember the old ladder truck they had.
100 foot ladder if i remember right.
They never really used it except for training and for the opening night of Towering Inferno at the Village Twin Cinema in Ryrie street Geelong.
pro trick: watch series on Flixzone. Me and my gf have been using it for watching a lot of movies recently.
@Angel Bruno yea, I've been using Flixzone for years myself :D
I was 14 in 1983, living on the Murray River. I'll never forget walking outside about 9pm and the smoke was thick 200km away.
Almost 35 years later, and I still end up having a panic attack when I smell smoke. Will never forget being trapped at one of the local schools, with the town literally surrounded by pine trees that were all up in flames.
wtfyhgtbfkm sorry about the panic attacks but i am glad to hear you survived.
Wow, which town..... Stirling?
I'll never forget this day..I was working on a chicken farm at Wasleys, about 60 kilometres north of Adelaide at the time..when we arrived for work that day we all as the narrator said had a sense of foreboding that this was not going to be a good day..the air was already thick with heat at 7am in the morning..then temperature rose quickly to the highest we'd ever seen in the shade there that day..49.5 degrees celcius and inside the sheds werent much better even with the cooling systems on.then,we noticed off in the distance the smoke coming from the Adelaide hills..not just little clouds as we'd seen with smaller fires in the past but what can only be described as apocolyptic balls of smoke that filled the air..nothing like I'd seen before and havent seen since...then the radio reports started coming in about what was happening and we couldn't believe our ears..was simply one of the worst days I've ever known and hope it never gets repeated.
really sad
It was scary, you got out ok?
Thanks for taking the time to upload this. My sister, her husband and my younger brother lost their house in Cockatoo on Ash Wednesday. Luckily they all got out safely. They rebuilt but moved away a few years later to the outer eastern suburbs. Too many bad memories at Cockatoo.
+aussiemedia1959 i know what you mean but i know people who lost family that day my teacher lost her husband and only child they were volunteer firefighters i was born later but having fought the black Saturday fires a lot of the old men were bringing i ash Wednesday up asking us not to beat ourselves up or to feel like we failed as firefighters
I lived in Melbourne during the Ash Wdnesday fires. The air was so so thick with black smoke, it was hard to breathe.
13:13 - His magnificent sideburns survived the fire, at least.
Haha such a funny insight. You are gifted. Keep up the hilarious comments
The fires caught him by surprise, that he did not even have time to finish shaving, lol.
Haha so funny with the sideburns and shaving jokes......NOT! F* idiots.
His name is Ken Ross. He was MY Group Officer in the 90's when i joined up. Amazing man with balls the size of coconuts.
And those sideburns were there for the rest of his life.
Thank you so much for posting. I lived in Macedon at the time, and I was 3 when this fire came through. I don't remember much obviously but do remember in later years the destruction it caused.
We lost our house in Cockatoo near the Dandenongs, I was only 5, we were swimming at Aura vale lake that day as school was cancelled due to the heat, the sun went pink in the smoke, the aftermath was there for years, truly heart breaking for many, my mates mum and grandmother passed away in it, they wouldn’t leave the house as they had cancer and wanted to go with the house, bloody sad 😞
That is so sad and heartbreaking,Ill never forget 2019/20 in the Blue mountains new year's eve was the worst and the most scary we were on holiday from QLD and were evacuated but it was a miracle our cousin house survived and neighbours weren't killed.
am I the only one who is fascinated by gum trees and their resilience and ability to survive even the harshest of conditions? I remember 09 in victoria and some of the fires were said to burn at temperatures of up to 1200c and yet the trees burnt still stand and are growing to this day.
Yeah that was one of the most fascinating things for me after the Ash Wednesday fires. The CSIRO estimated that these fires burnt at a temperature of 2000c, and had a kilowatt heat energy almost equivalent to the Hiroshima bomb. The first time we drove through areas after the fires were over it was just total devastation, you would never have thought anything could have grown there again, and yet only a couple of weeks after that we were already seeing the first new shoots of green on trees that were no more than blackened twigs and stumps, and new plant growth peeking through the ground.
Ash Wednesday burnt a lot of the trees in the forest near my house. They are still black, still green and still standing.
Gums are dangerous, they spread fires😢
Recorded at 3AK/GTV9 Production in 1983 by me. Talent was Alex Scott.
fabulous production, well done and thank you! Piece of classical music around 45mins I can't quite place.
So well done!
is there anyways that i could find the helicopter footage, I would like to make a documentory about ash wednesday as well.
@@Loafy01 not to my knowledge sorry.
Fabulous production, thank you
My dad was Bridgewater CFS I'd heard about it when I was young and found his old uniform in the shed. I now have so much more respect now I never quite realised he had gone to war with nature with practically a garden hose
We don't hear a lot about the CFS guys from the Adelaide Hills but from what I've heard they're the most amazing brave people that would put they're life on the line to help others and should get a lot more respect than they do
I was 11 years old in Adelaide when these fires occurred. Luckily we lived in one of the parts of the city that was safe from direct fire impact, but I can still remember all of the power going out, the choking haze of smoke that was in the air, looking towards the Adelaide Hills and just seeing this incredibly ominous red and orange glow. We drove through some of the areas that had been destroyed a couple of weeks after the fires & the only way I can describe it was apocalyptic. The sheer scale of destruction was mind blowing, it was like landing on another planet. It was just extremely fortunate at the time that none of our friends or family living in the hills at the time were injured or lost their houses, unlike so many others.
I remember the sky so well it did look like another planet,I was about the same age .
I mean of freaking course people around the world thought half the bloody country was on fire... My dad legit stood on a beach in NZ facing the Aussie coast and they could see parts the eastern coast of Australia absolutely lit up glowing from the ash Wednesday fires, they also copped a ton of smoke from them too
Holy fu.... really?
That's insane. we were completely burning
My mum was lucky to survive in Belgrave sth on Ash Wednesday I still listen to the story’s cause the heat was that bad the door swelled and was jammed so my mum and Aunty were stuck they got out and were so lucky to survive a change of air direction saved her so blessed
Phenomenal verbiage; this narration is a work of art.
We used to have professionals making documentaries not just kids with the latest phone
Poetic, a lost art
@ or ChatGPT
I remember it well.. we lost power and the weather in adel was horrible , windy and damn hot.. we went to the local pub as we had a baby with us who needed to be kept cool.. we all sensed something bad would happen that day and it did.. My bro who'd never been to a fire let alone try and fight one, went to help.. lots lost their lives in vic and south aussie.. my bro swore he'd never do it again as it was so scarey.. well something change in him and he joined the fireries and now 2018 he's trained and ready to do his job and will soon be going into state to help them with theirs in qld.. Proud of all who do it and proud of my bro too
My father was with the Australian Army at the time and spent his 21st Birthday (17th February) battling these fires. There have been some horrible fires in Australia since, but it doesn't depreciate how impactful events as such are. My heart still goes out to those who faced loss during this.
What a hero at 29:50. Old school stoicism…, “we’re off to go now, and we must go now”
I was a young Apprentice In Melbourne Suburbs. I remember the dust storm that made everything turn Orange. I Remember burnt leaves coming down In my local Park . Approximately 50 Km from the Fire
I remember walking home from school in Kingsbury Melbourne when all of a sudden a massive dust storm was heading my way. It was almost biblical in proportions. I was only 13 years of age at the time. I panicked a little not quite understanding what was happening when a young boy ahead of me also on his way home said it was a dust storm coming in from the bushfires in the West. Then soon enough the landscape changed. From light to the sun disappearing and all that dust was everywhere and in everything including my hair. Surreal.
evacuate early..dont stay and wait to see if it is coming towards ones place. leave in the morning..
I was 10 months old at the time living in Ferntree Gully, so not far away from the Dandenongs, my parents recall ash raining into our backyard,lots of smoke,and cement mixers filled with water driving down the street. The four of us (Mum,Dad,Grandma and I) slept in our lounge room with the aircon, with me in a portable cot. It was quite a night my family would never forget.
i couldnt dream of what these people went through, i hope they were able to move on with their lives after such trajedy. i hope the fire fighters were able to remember the people they saved instead of those that had been unable to save. we often forget that firefighters are just people like you and me except they run into the mouth of hell to rescue us instead of run away as instinct tells us to do. for their sacrifice and the emotional pain they endure and dedication to keep helping us .....thank you.
The captain in the interview is Ken Ross from the Port Noarlunga Brigade (Now Seaford). The incident they were involved in was in the McLaren Vale/McLaren Flat area and very nearly killed them all. How they survived is still not known. A couple of hours after this interview and the incident that immobilised their truck they managed to find a truck mechanic to repair their damaged radiator and immediately went back into the flames. He was the Noarlunga group officer when i joint the Port Noarlunga brigade in the 90's. He was an amazing man and an amazing leader.
My old man who has since passed on suffered PTSD as result of Ash Wednesday having to fight it as a volunteer firey and seeing fatalities as well
I remember hearing so many horror stories I'm surprised there's not more of this
@@James-kv6kb the way our climate cycles are changing in their behavior sooner rather than later Ash Wednesday 3 will occur
@@robbiestewart1984 I remember seeing the sky that was orange and black it looked like Mars, it was Armageddon. but people want to ignore this and keep polluting the planet so it'll happen again as you say
My heart hurts for the horror faced by so many brave people. May God hold them close and bless them, for they have seen the face of evil as hell itself came to visit.
Great documentary, many thanks. I lived in Altona North in Melbourne at the time and phone lines had been setup for relatives in England. The sky was a reddish black and it was truly awful
Definitely brings back some memories watching this.
I was 3 years old when this happened living in Sky, down near Frankston, im 45 now. There was fires down towards us as well. Definitely one of the worst fire days ever. Then we had black Saturday in February 2009. The worst loss of life we have ever had. 179 ppl died. Devastating.
I remember it although I was only 7. I also remember the dust storm and the sky turning red. 😢
They had backpack squirt guns. Squirt guns, guys. I'm speechless.
Thanks for uplouding this. Aboat 15 years ago, there was a film aboat this at Discovery. Does anyone remember that and can you uploud that? Hugs from Norway.
38.26 He had a jumper on this time...
I remember coming out of hospital where I'd been for about two months and seeing the orange and black sky in Adelaide, it was like nothing ID seen before it looked like mars
I and my young family were living in Cheltenham (Melb) on that night. I came home from a school council meeting and was catching scorched gum leaves which had been blown across from the Otway fires. One of our school families had a holiday home which we had stayed in that summer in Anglesea. They had pruned back gum branches which reached to the first floor verandah over the Christmas break. Their house survived. For whatever reason those on either side were destroyed...the vagaries of bush fire.
Dad sometimes reminds me of Ash Wednesday, a sheep farmer in west Vic he related of farmers putting down cattle for lack of feed the drought was that bad .
I still remember this time.
Lucky for me i was some distance away from the actual fire.
I was working with a mate at that time Hay Carting of all things in Moriac (about 20 kms South West of Geelong Victoria )
And it was Bloody Hot.
I still remember we got 20 cents a bail.
Lucky for us it was my mates dads farm so we manage to get the price up from the original price of 10 cents a bail, lol.
When we were working we could see the smoke everywhere from where we were working.
Had NO idea it was so bad.
There’s something fascinating about the old Cfs trucks and brigades.
17:06 "I brought my Bible, 'cause that's the biggest gift of all!" Agreed!:)
Deborah Wood ur a flog
Yeah, Bibles are irreplaceable. It’s not like you can walk into any bookstore and just buy one for a few bucks or something lol
@@bigbowlowrong4694I'm not Christian , but I can quite believe in the power of people's beliefs in the actual system of belief and an item that was a lucky charm or something that has always stayed with them, so even though i'm agnostic, i can quite believe that people carry the one bible throughout their lives so you are kinda missing the point kinda. Reminds me of that time when reading about BB King running back in to the burning bar to rescue his guitar Lucille.
i enjoyed watching this.
So these fires happened in February and yet in 2018 and 2019 it’s starting in November now.
these fires in nov have been linked to arson as are 87% of ALL fires in australia so sit down you alarmist know nothing.
@@BingLeiFM Not to mention, go back to black thursday in 1851, a quarter of victoria was on fire, registering 49 in many places across the state and all before cars and shit, this is a natural cycle of earth, monster heat waves and ice ages have been occurring way before mankind even existed, sure we have a slight impact on the planet but nothing the planet isnt equipped to deal with
@@BingLeiFM
But the media Love to bang on about the Climate change.
It is a Hot now as it was back then.
In some cases it,s actually more cooler than back then.
I still remember many days back then of roads melting and rail lines buckling.
@@BingLeiFM Wrong. Know your facts before you post.
@@weldmachine The heat maps of Australia over the past 30 years beg to differ. However, it is a complex and complicated mix of situations that create the "big ones" of Australia's history. No one thing should be ignored in trying to mitigate the ferocity of these fires and in trying to minimise loss in so many facets of our lives.
I was a student at Mount Gambier East primary school that day. I remember the heat, orange sky and school being cancelled.
Shit, I didn't know the fires went all the way down to Mt. Gambier.
@@Stratahoovius Sure did
@@Aearonjer How close did they get to city then?
@@Stratahoovius I was a small child, no awareness of anything like that, something felt wrong, no real idea of consequence. I do remember, school closing and being picked up my parents Subaru Leone, our first car with electric windows, weird thing to remember.
@@Stratahoovius Hey bud, not sure i was quite young back then, main memory was as above and our subaru leone, first car we had with electric windows and sunroof. Pimp.
The most tragic event about this fire and others like is… every generation is doomed to repeat it.
What we had recently and this one were different . Yes the recent ones were massive and in most states but it didn't have the ferocity of this one or like the Canberra one .
This will be repeated upon them and there is nothing that can be done about that, this is the nature of earth and climate change is gonna ramp it right up too.
It’s Australia that’s why. Floods droughts fires like a revolving door.
How awful. How scary. I don’t know what I’d do in that situation. G-D Bless those firemen. This documentary is breaking my heart.
I heard the Mount Macedon fires started at East Trentham by an overhead SEC power line arcing on a tree branch.
A local told me back in 1983.
Melbourne born and bred. I remember the big dust storm; we got sent home early from school bcos of it I was in grade 6 and delighted!! But it was ominous and soon massive bushfires. The upper part of Boronia (near the basin) was evacuated due to the fires we had to stay with relatives. As a youngster that meant things were serious! Pa try s of Belgrave and Belgrave Sth were wrecked. But Cockatoo and Beaconsfield were both obliterated. Many lives were lost; Nation was in mourning.
I know it's off-topic, but I spy an XY GT Falcon with the shaker @ 7:00 - anyone else see that? :-D
Mm it's a beauty
Yes i spot that one too.
Funny relating it to the movie Running on Empty.
Cars like that still populate barns and sheds all over Australia. Who knows how many but they are still out there. You'd be very lucky to find one and then lawfully pry it from its owner. Most of them have simply been held on to by hoarders and stubborn old men that are keeping them for other reasons, not necessarily their value.
I don’t remember hearing about this as I only turned 5 in 83’ but have heard of Ash Wednesday of course. Very tragic
I was 1 in 1983- its interesting to see what shaped my country in those years
Recall that day well
Last day of uni break doing nursing
Determined to have a last beach day at at Maslins where I lived
Hot brown dust storm cyclone so stayed inside reluctantly
Lost tv lost power
When tv came back on that nite Murray Nichols
Saw mclaren flat fires etc after
Two days later on placement at queen Elizabeth Hosp Woodville from nurses home saw floods up the road , weird
Shocking times there
The poor cow at 14:51 oh how awful. Poor animals.
Memories I would rather forget.
The farmers having to shoot their sheep... jeezuz
Also it's really interesting seeing those shots of Melbourne in the 80's. Because I wasn't born at this time.
43:47 - Great to see Mario chipping in with the clean up efforts. 👍
We got ash from that fire in Boronia Vic ,Remember trying to get to Cockatoo had friends there to check on .
+Rockford03 I was at the Boronia swimming pool the afternoon the dust storm flew into us, as the guy in the video mentioned we all knew that something big was about to happen. I remember the ash and embers coming down on us in The Basin and the glowing red sky looking towards Belgrave.
Yeah i was living in boronia had friends in cockatoo their house survived
I recall that day
I planned the last beach day before uni resumed Adelaide-maslin’s
The dust storm then total loss of tv and radio, power so I stayed inside,bit miffed
Then fires at mclaren vale visible, then tv resumed and terrible news
Murray Nichols etc, bit like the end of the world
Two days later big storm, crazy, rain +++
Like they saay, Australia is always on fire.
I was working at that time in a big hotel in Melbourne,we sent food to the people up to the Dandenong’s,really bad year that.
My dad was on school camp when this happened. they all evacuated from the campsite
What about Monbulk?
We lived in the northern suburbs of Melbourne and could smell the smoke.
I'll never forget that day I was living in QLD and it was 2 days short of my sisters 1st Birthday,and we had family living in country South Australia and Victoria and the scenes we so horrorfic,I remember the Rainfall was very low in the the winter of 1982 and early 1983. Hence why it was the Biblical name Ash Wednesday.
The Only Time I Wished There Was A Tsunami 🔥 🌊
8:51 this photo must have been taken from Canterbury rd kilsyth
You notice how deliberately lit isn’t mentioned here ?
That came much later
Too many pyromaniacs got away with fires in those days
The narrator sounds like Jeremy Irons 😂
Nothing to do with global warming. Sadly Australia is always doomed for bushfires. Been happening well b4 my time😢 I remember this day well, so darn hot, and had to shut the windows, due to the ash, coming in. They were shut anyway, due to that horrible hot nth wind😢
I would have a bunker built, if I lived bush
I was a kid when this happened and living in Werribee i remember the you yangs on fire
40 years ago today.
I was 13 living in North Queensland.
Was absolotely terrible to watch.
I vistied Adelaide with my Mum in 84
And the Adelaide hills wete still black.
That happened to me
good show.
My grandfather put up some hunts up in Mt Buller. We're prince Charles stayded I used to camp up there with my family how could someone do this proffeser in ian ramsay makwell
2024 Australia, we are in a drought again( Victoria)
My teacher was the kid in Ash Wednesday 😮
Back when Aussies were Aussies.
1983, My Mum: In bed at like 12:00 am she smelt smoke and she was only 7 if it wasn’t for her her whole family would of died
I live in cockatoo
Is it true kangaroos jumped off cliffs and drowned to escape the flames?
Not sure about in Victoria, but I don't remember any reports of it happening in Adelaide where I lived at the time (I was 11 when the fires happened). Animals did drown after fleeing into swimming pools to try and escape the fire, although mind you considering the radiant heat from the fire was hot enough to cause houses to explode 300 metres before the actual flames even hit I'd say it's fair to assume a lot of animals burnt to death before they even had a chance to try and find shelter which simply didn't exist or was a death trap for them.
I’m not sure. But I know kangaroos sometimes jump into water to not get burnt
Ok guys sooo my teaches sister was pregnant when this happened and the fire was heading for there house and it was like 5 meters away from the house and then like a miracle the wind changed and the fire went away from there house!., 😩😲😲😲😮😧😮😲😧😯😯😦😮
*their
Nathaniel Pillar xdddddd
Nathaniel Pillar xddddd I was going to but then I was like nahhhh
The voiceover for this video is so melodramatic at times.
لدي الحل لحرائق الغابات مناظر مؤسفه رغم قدم الحريق ولكن مازال الحال كما هو فان اردتو الحل فهو موجود ويحتاج اموالا ربما تكون كبيرة الى متوسطة فالنهايه تستحق الصرف على انقاذ الناس والاشجار والحيوانات وانقاذ ماتبقى من اكسجين في كوكبنا المتداعي
Just saw this .Pity religion had to get invovled.
It was important to people at the time. Contributing to how they interpreted and delt with what happened to them.
Seriously that’s what you come away with. Pretty pathetic. If you’d been there in those fires, maybe you’d understand!
I find the rhetoric sometimes a little heavy handed. Sorry. Best documentary I have seen is the one called Black Saturday
Z
What a cheesy biblical and apocalyptic script this bloke had to read. Some nice cars back then, and horrible hair cuts.
good show.