'The Victorian bushfires of February 2009 captured the attention of all Australians and made headlines around the world. One hundred and seventy-three people lost their lives, the greatest number from any bushfire event in this nation's history.
'In the wake of this tragedy much media and public commentary emphasised recovery, resilience, community, self-sufficiency and renewed determination. Peg Fraser, working as a Museum Victoria curator with survivors in the small settlement of Strathewen, listened to these stories but also to other, more challenging narratives.
'The memories and thoughts that Fraser heard, and gives voice to in this book, complicate much of what we thought we knew about the experience of catastrophic natural events. Although all members of the same community, Strathewen's survivors lived through Black Saturday and its aftermath in ways that were often very different from each other.
'Beginning each chapter with an object from the bushfires - among them a Trewhella jack, a burned mobile phone, a knitted chook and a brick chimney - Fraser explores and reveals how each person's identity, including as a man or a woman with a particular social position in the town, impacted upon experiences and understandings of loss, survival and even the future.'
'This is historical truth of the most vital, affecting and powerful kind.' (Publication summary)
'It is over ten years since the fires on 7 February 2009 burnt throughout Victoria and into the history books. Black Saturday occurred during one of the worst bushfire seasons in Victoria and led to the death of 173 people. Peg Fraser's Black Saturday: Not the End of the Story is an important contribution to the process of remembering and reflecting on the effects and aftermath of the fires.(Introduction)'
'Even if that awful summer day did not become known as Black Saturday, February 7, 2009, could not have been forgotten by anyone who experienced hot northerly winds so fierce it felt as though your eyeballs were being scorched. In inner-suburban Melbourne, where I was that day, the temperature rose above 46C, a record high for the city.' (Introduction)
'Stories are at the heart of Peg Fraser’s compassionate and thoughtful book about Strathewen and the 2009 Black Saturday bushfires. The initial impression gained by the subtitle, Not the end of the story, could be one of defiance, a familiar narrative of a community stoically recovering and rebuilding. Yet this book is anything but hackneyed, and the title proves provocative. How could the story of Black Saturday ever end? Is there just one Black Saturday story? Who is making this story, and why? The great American fire historian Stephen J. Pyne has observed that there are three paradigms of academic research on fire – physical, biological, cultural – and that it is the cultural paradigm that is the most neglected. Black Saturday is a ‘story about stories’ and thus represents an important step in the understanding of how Australians live with fire. Fraser challenges the clichés that influence so much public discussion about bushfire tragedies.' (Introduction)
'Even if that awful summer day did not become known as Black Saturday, February 7, 2009, could not have been forgotten by anyone who experienced hot northerly winds so fierce it felt as though your eyeballs were being scorched. In inner-suburban Melbourne, where I was that day, the temperature rose above 46C, a record high for the city.' (Introduction)
'It is over ten years since the fires on 7 February 2009 burnt throughout Victoria and into the history books. Black Saturday occurred during one of the worst bushfire seasons in Victoria and led to the death of 173 people. Peg Fraser's Black Saturday: Not the End of the Story is an important contribution to the process of remembering and reflecting on the effects and aftermath of the fires.(Introduction)'
'Stories are at the heart of Peg Fraser’s compassionate and thoughtful book about Strathewen and the 2009 Black Saturday bushfires. The initial impression gained by the subtitle, Not the end of the story, could be one of defiance, a familiar narrative of a community stoically recovering and rebuilding. Yet this book is anything but hackneyed, and the title proves provocative. How could the story of Black Saturday ever end? Is there just one Black Saturday story? Who is making this story, and why? The great American fire historian Stephen J. Pyne has observed that there are three paradigms of academic research on fire – physical, biological, cultural – and that it is the cultural paradigm that is the most neglected. Black Saturday is a ‘story about stories’ and thus represents an important step in the understanding of how Australians live with fire. Fraser challenges the clichés that influence so much public discussion about bushfire tragedies.' (Introduction)
