While phrases such as ‘holocaust’, ‘a tidal wave of fire’ or ‘being at the center of a perfect fire-storm’ were bandied around in the small groups of traumatised residents clustered in what remained of their friends and neighbours houses after Australias most devastating bushfires, almost nothing could adequately describe the complete anihilation of the village of Kinglake in the state of Victoria and the forest surrounding it.

Temperatures in the February inferno are believed to have been as hot as 1400 degrees celcius and wind speeds were said to be in excess of 200kms an hour at the height of the blaze. While scientists estimate that the energy released by the collision of the two fearsome firefronts known as the Kinglake Complex to have been equivalent to that of five hundred nuclear bombs the size of just one of which flattened Hiroshima, the human and environmental costs of the utter destruction of the area have yet to be finally counted.

While it is now known that at least 173 people died, over 2000 properties were destroyed and hundreds of thousands of hectares of bush and farmland were burnt out, the process of recovery and analysis of what occurred has just begun.

Certainly one ponders the tragedy of such an enormous environmental disaster. The Kinglake National Park region was once a lush, picturesque and easy drive from the city of Melbourne abundant with flora and fauna. What now remains are the cinders of the once magnificent mountain ash ranges and the inevitable questions of why such a firestorm occurred.

Global warming, drought, excessive temperatures and a preponderance for fire activity in the region seem the most likely culprits for the ignition of millions of tonnes of fuel in the immediate hinterland of the state capital city of Melbourne, though it is yet to be thoroughly explored as to the role that so called ‘fire-bugs’ had in the calamity.

Regardless of the initial cause of the conflagration, the ultimate price paid by the environment is enormous. Few if any of indigenous species of animals had been able to survive the flames and if they had miraculously escaped the perishing heat, the inexorable dehydration that followed claimed them. The force of the fire was so great that even organic matter within the soil had been incinerated.

While the Australian bushfire season conjures terror and loathing for some, the dream of ‘tree-changers’ heading ‘bush’ for a bucolic break from city life is powerful motivation to ignore the potential ferocity of the landscape ablaze. Exactly how much of the disaster that befell the residents of the tiny hamlets of Victoria during the bushfires was due to complacency about possible fire conditions or whether the event was symptomatic of further proof of global warming possibly won’t ever be determined but what is evident is that the cost of ignoring either situation is at our own peril.