Omeo

"As the sky grew ever darker, a sheet of flame ripped through Omeo, destroying the Golden Age Hotel, the hospital, twenty houses and eleven shops as it went."

Many fires had been burning as far north as the Upper Murray since Christmas in 1938. When the winds grew in strength in the second week of January, the fires began to spread and join up. A fire burning on a front of twenty-five miles was already out of control in the Kiewa Valley by Sunday 8 January 1939. The country between there and Omeo was virtually uninhabited save for crews working on the survey of the State Electricity Commission's Kiewa hydro-electric scheme. By 10 January, the Dargo High Plains were ablaze. As the week wore on, fires reached the top of the ranges above Omeo and started to spot around the town.

By Black Friday, a number of fires had already joined up and were directly threatening the town. As the sky grew ever darker, a sheet of flame ripped through Omeo, destroying the Golden Age Hotel, the hospital, twenty houses and eleven shops as it went, before continuing its rampage towards Gippsland. At Swifts Creek, the local fire brigade spent twenty-eight days on end fighting fires.

By a miracle only one person died - station hand Ernest Richards was overtaken by the flames north of Bairnsdale and died trying to reach his wife and new-born child who remained safe in Omeo.