Black Friday is the dramatic and moving story of the most terrifying fires since the European occupation of Australia. Here you will discover just how deeply Black Friday burned into the national consciousness. It also savagely took lives and left survivors with enduring emotional and physical scars. Some of those stories are told here for the first time.

I was 24 when the fire came through Narbethong. I had a parcel of sandwiches down the front of me shirt and me and my horse and my rake, we went off to fight the 1939 fires.

I saw a little fire a while ago on the telly where there was a bulldozer, a grader, 11 tankers and helicopters coming to fight a little scrub fire we would normally put out with about 20 men.

On the Sunday that he died, I think it was 110, on the Tuesday when they had the funeral was 112 and Black Friday on the following Friday was 114. It was a very bad time, but there were so many deaths, over 70 deaths in those fires.

I can remember my Dad coming home from work and saying to my Mum “Why are you people still here”.

So we had to pack up and go and we got to the top of the hill, just where the Blue Rock dam starts and the lady across on the other road, her house just went up like a big bomb.

I suppose about midday or late morning the smoke started to appear. Next thing, across the river from our place, we saw a fire come up from the north heading south like giant red kangaroos leaping through the tops of the trees, a terrible sight, a frightening sight.

There were tins of kerosene and ancient ammunition going off, like geysers. The place was our life and it all went up in flames.

We didn’t think it was any threat at all until about 3 o’clock in the afternoon then the roaring wind came up and blew the fire off the mountains and set the hospital on fire.

Little did I know that the whole town was going to be burnt in the next half hour.
A group of them got under the main bridge and the tar was dripping out of the bridge and falling on them.

Mum went to the stove and she bent down to look at the cake and this ball of fire come through the window, the house just exploded.

They wrapped us up in blankets, they shouldn’t have done that, but back in those days you did what you thought was right, but it was unbelievable, just sitting there, watching the skin curl off your body.

I’ve never seen anything like it. The other kids that got lost, they run.
Fear, that’s the thing in life, fear overcomes you. We all found them.
Yeah, a hard moment for the parents, but I had a good mother. A strong mother.

I spent five years in the army, and I don’t think I ever seen anything as bad as that.
You know, just the feeling that you got no hope of getting out.

I went back down to go and see where my brother was and I met four blokes coming down, one of his brothers was there, and he said, “Don’t go any further Ern” he said “We can’t recognise any of them”.

So I never went that last bit to see them, I just couldn’t bring myself to go and look at them. It always had me upset because I got him the job.
It was very hard for a while.

Every summer you would start to think, is this going to be the year. It’s really hard when you lose absolutely everything. It’s part of your, the fabric of your life that’s been destroyed really.
It’s strange to see all the living things that you had in that house, they’re still in the same place, but they’re all black and buckled and twisted.

We were all scared of course. When ever I smell the gum leaves burning, it reminds me of the fires in ’39. You never forget it.