Black Tuesday - 1967 Tasmania bushfires

On Tuesday 7 February 1967, 110 separate fires ravaged southern Tasmania. In just five hours 62 people would lose their lives, 900 would be injured and 7,000 left homeless. Over half a million acres would be burnt and 1,293 homes destroyed.

These fires came within two kilometres of central Hobart, killing 20 people and destroying 432 houses in the metropolitan area.

Like Canberra in 2003, no one believed in 1967 that bushfires could penetrate the urban areas and come into the city. Bushfires happened in the bush.

This is an account of four people's experience on that day, including a then 14 year old boy, John Gledhill, who went on the become the Chief Fire Officer of the Tasmania Fire Service, and also a Bushfire CRC board member and President of AFAC.

Phil Cheney, Honorary Research Fellow for CSIRO, investigated both the 1967 Tasmania and 2003 Canberra fires. In this film, he explores the lessons to be learnt from both events and tells us what we must do to stop it happening again.

This film was developed by the Bushfire CRC with the support of the Tasmania Fire Service.