"On 8 January 2003, over 80 fires were ignited by lightning strikes across eastern Victoria. While most of these fires were rapidly contained, it took nearly 60 days to fully control all of these outbreaks, and not before well over 1 million hectares (ha) of National Park and other reserves, State forest and grazing land were burnt. Fortunately, there was no loss of life directly attributable to on-line firefighting activities, and asset losses (e.g. stock, fences, public infrastructure) whilst significant, were perhaps lower than might have been the case given the extent of the fires. The relative remoteness (largely uninhabited forest areas) was an important contributing factor in this regard. However, it is clear that significant ecological impacts occurred in those parts of State forest and National Park and other reserved land that was burnt by high intensity fire. Of particular concern are the long-term impacts of the fires on water quality and stream biota, particularly in the headwaters of relatively pristine streams, as a result of subsequent overland flow and erosion, as documented by Leitch et al. (1983)¹, following the Ash Wednesday fires."

"By the end of March 2003, at least two such events had already occurred, one resulting from storms on 29 March that led to stream sedimentation on a relatively massive scale following sheet, rill and gully erosion in forested and agricultural lands near Cobungra. The other incident in the Buckland catchment on 26 February 2003 not only caused major downstream water supply problems for the township of Porepunkah and the city of Wangaratta, but also resulted in the tragic death of one firefighter and injuries to two other firefighters due to flash flooding."