Australia’s Black Summer bushfires of 2019 and 2020 wreaked destruction across South-Eastern Australia. Images of flames crowned trees, engulfed fire trucks and people crowded on beaches and packed in boats were broadcast into our homes.
For European colonists in 19th century Australia, bushfires were a strange, but by no means uncommon phenomenon. Rather, they had become part of life, and also a focus of media attention.
In addition to journalistic reporting, Australian newspapers also published hundreds of serialised bushfire narratives, often concurrent with the fire season.
