Fire film shows historic lessons have relevance now

Fifty seven years ago today, on Tuesday 24 January 1961, disaster struck Dwellingup, a Forestry Department stronghold, deep in the jarrah forests 110km south of Perth. The Day the Flames Came: Dwellingup 1961 is a documentary developed in 2006 by the then Bushfire CRC with the now WA Department of Fire and Emergency Services and WA Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions. 

The Dwellingup fires were a watershed in the way authorities manage fires and the critical lessons learned continue to have relevance today.

At the time, the bushfire was the most intense in recorded history, destroying the town in a matter of hours, devastating a community and shaking the self-belief of some of the toughest foresters and firefighters in the business.

This film follows the story of three men who fought to save their wives and children on that terrible night as the flames bore down. And two mothers: one caught on the road in the back of a ute with her children fleeing from the destruction; the other, trapped outside her town by fate and a charitable deed, asks for news of her husband and friends and is told that no one survived.