In 1967, catastrophic bushfires in Tasmania killed dozens of people – and very nearly destroyed Hobart.
A year later, W.D. Jackson, Professor of Botany at the University of Tasmania, published a short but very influential article on why the fires were so bad. He suggested that after Tasmania’s wet eucalypt forests were burned by severe bushfires, there would be a high-risk period during their regrowth when they are at risk of severely burning again.
