Yarra Ranges National Park is located in the Central Highlands of Australia's southeastern state Victoria, 107 km northeast of Melbourne. Established in 1995 and managed by the statutory authority Parks Victoria, the park features a carbon-rich, temperate rainforest and a subalpine eucalypt forest on its northern plateau. It is home to large stands of mountain ash, the tallest tree species in Australia and among the tallest in the world. A wide diversity of fauna make their home across the park's 76,003 hectares, including kangaroos, wallabies, wombats, platypuses and 120 species of native birds. Among the conservation challenges facing Yarra Ranges National Park are climate change and invasive species of weeds.
Eucalyptus regnans, known variously as mountain ash, swamp gum, or stringy gum, is a species of medium-sized to very tall forest tree that is native to the Australia states of Tasmania and Victoria. It is a straight-trunked tree with smooth grey bark, but with a stocking of rough brown bark at the base, glossy green, lance-shaped to curved adult leaves, flower buds in groups of between nine and fifteen, white flowers, and cup-shaped or conical fruit. It is the tallest of all flowering plants; the tallest measured living specimen, named Centurion, stands 100 metres tall in Tasmania.
Leadbeater's possum is a critically endangered possum largely restricted to small pockets of alpine ash, mountain ash, and snow gum forests in the Central Highlands of Victoria, Australia, north-east of Melbourne. It is primitive, relict, and non-gliding, and, as the only species in the petaurid genus Gymnobelideus, represents an ancestral form. Formerly, Leadbeater's possums were moderately common within the very small areas they inhabited; their requirement for year-round food supplies and tree-holes to take refuge in during the day restricts them to mixed-age wet sclerophyll forest with a dense mid-story of Acacia. The species was named in 1867 after John Leadbeater, the then taxidermist at the Museum Victoria. They also go by the common name of fairy possum. On 2 March 1971, the State of Victoria made the Leadbeater's possum its faunal emblem.
Warrandyte is a suburb of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 24 km north-east of Melbourne's Central Business District, located within the City of Manningham local government area. Warrandyte recorded a population of 5,541 at the 2021 census.
The Black Friday bushfires of 13 January 1939, in Victoria, Australia, were part of the devastating 1938–1939 bushfire season in Australia, which saw bushfires burning for the whole summer, and ash falling as far away as New Zealand. It was calculated that three-quarters of the State of Victoria was directly or indirectly affected by the disaster, while other Australian states and the Australian Capital Territory were also badly hit by fires and extreme heat. This was the third-deadliest bushfire event in Australian history, only behind the 1983 Ash Wednesday bushfires and the 2009 Black Saturday bushfires.
Kinglake is a town in Victoria, Australia, 56 km (35 mi) north-east of Melbourne's Central Business District, located within the Shires of Murrindindi and Nillumbik local government areas. Kinglake recorded a population of 1,662 at the 2021 census.
Marysville is a town in the Shire of Murrindindi in Victoria, Australia, about 34 kilometres north-east of Healesville and 41 kilometres south of Alexandra. The town, which previously had a population of over 500 people, was devastated by the Murrindindi Mill bushfire on 7 February 2009. On 19 February 2009 the official death toll was 45. Around 90% of the town's buildings were destroyed. Prior to the Black Saturday fire the population in 2006 was 519. At the 2011 Census, the population had reduced to 226, by the 2016 census it had risen to 394.
Lake Mountain is a 1,433-metre-high (4,701 ft) mountain peak on a plateau that hosts a cross-country ski resort that is known by the same name. It is located in Victoria, Australia, approximately 120 kilometres (75 mi) north-east of Melbourne. The 1,483-metre-high (4,865 ft) Mount Bullfight, which is within the Mount Bullfight Nature Conservation Reserve, is the highest peak that can be reached by a cross-country ski trail from Lake Mountain. Access to Lake Mountain's summit is restricted to a snow shoe track in winter. The Lake Mountain Alpine Resort, located near Lake Mountain, is the most popular ski resort in Australia when measured in terms of total visitor numbers, including sightseers, due to its proximity to Melbourne.
In Australia, during winter and spring 2001, low rainfall across combined with a hot, dry December created ideal conditions for bushfires. On the day of Christmas Eve, firefighters from the Grose Vale Rural Fire Service (RFS) brigade attended a blaze in rugged terrain at the end of Cabbage Tree Rd, Grose Vale, believed to have been caused by power lines in the Grose Valley.
Mount Donna Buang is a mountain in the southern reaches of the Victorian Alps of the Great Dividing Range, located in the Australian state of Victoria. Approximately 94 kilometres (58 mi) from Melbourne with an elevation of 1,250 metres (4,101 ft), Mount Donna Buang is the closest snowfield to Melbourne.
The Cathedral Range State Park located in Victoria, Australia, approximately 100 kilometres (62 mi) north-east of Melbourne. It is situated between the towns of Buxton and Taggerty and runs parallel to the Maroondah Highway. The Cathedral Range was declared a State Park on 26 April 1979. It consists of 3,577 hectares and contains the rugged Razorback and spectacular peaks of the Cathedral Range, Little River and forested hills of the Blue Range. Due to its proximity to Melbourne the Cathedral Ranges are a popular destination for both day and weekend adventures. Bushwalking, camping, rock climbing and abseiling are some of the more popular activities available. Cathedral Range State Park is listed as Category II under the IUCN World Commission on Protected Areas and is an example of a park that can be used for recreation, education and conserving natural ecosystems.
The Australian bushfire season ran from late December 2008 to April/May 2009. Above average rainfalls in December, particularly in Victoria, delayed the start of the season, but by January 2009, conditions throughout South eastern Australia worsened with the onset of one of the region's worst heat waves. On 7 February, extreme bushfire conditions precipitated major bushfires throughout Victoria, involving several large fire complexes, which continued to burn across the state for around one month. 173 people lost their lives in these fires and 414 were injured. 3,500+ buildings were destroyed, including 2,029 houses, and 7,562 people displaced.
Bushfires in Australia are a widespread and regular occurrence that have contributed significantly to shaping the nature of the continent over millions of years. Eastern Australia is one of the most fire-prone regions of the world, and its predominant eucalyptus forests have evolved to thrive on the phenomenon of bushfire. However, the fires can cause significant property damage and loss of both human and animal life. Bushfires have killed approximately 800 people in Australia since 1851, and billions of animals.
The Black Saturday bushfires were a series of bushfires that either ignited or were already burning across the Australian state of Victoria on and around Saturday, 7 February 2009, and were one of Australia's all-time worst bushfire disasters. The fires occurred during extreme bushfire weather conditions and resulted in Australia's highest-ever loss of human life from a bushfire, with 173 fatalities. Many people were left homeless as a result.
Established in 1965, the Yellingbo Nature Conservation Reserve is located 45 km east of Melbourne in the Upper Yarra Valley, near the towns of Yellingbo, Launching Place, Yarra Junction, Hoddles Creek, Cockatoo, Emerald, Monbulk and Seville. Yellingbo Nature Conservation Reserve is a narrow riparian reserve with stream-frontage land along the Woori Yallock, Shepherd, Cockatoo, Macclesfield and Sheep Station Creeks.
The Toolangi State Forest region in southern Australia extends from Mount Monda in the south up to Murrindindi in the north and includes the township of Toolangi. The forest is mainly eucalypt forest that has regrown from the 1939 Victoria Bushfires.
The Taggerty River, a minor inland perennial river of the Goulburn Broken catchment, part of the Murray-Darling basin, is located in the lower South Eastern Highlands bioregion and Northern Country/North Central regions of the Australian state of Victoria. The headwaters of the Taggerty River rise on the north–western slopes of the Yarra Ranges, below Lake Mountain and descend to flow into the Steavenson River near Marysville.
The Forests Commission Victoria (FCV) was the main government authority responsible for management and protection of State forests in Victoria, Australia between 1918 and 1983.
