It would take the pen of a Zola or a Charles Dickens to even attempt to adequately describe the fearful havoc that has been wrought in Victoria by the devastating bush fires.

...Fire can be a good servant, but when it gets out of hand it is a terrible monster. There have been some devastating outbreaks in the State since ‘Black Thursday’ on February 6, 1851, and in all the years that have intervened human ingenuity seems to have evolved no plan to make the bush country tolerably safe.

[CH, 16/1/39]