What started the 2003 alpine wildfires and how much forest did they affect?
The recent Victorian Alpine fires started on January 7/8th 2003 when lightning started about 80 fires in national parks and state forests during the passage of a storm front. During the next 59 days the fires coalesced and burnt approx. 1 million hectares of forested public land and 90,000 hectares of private land in Victoria before spreading into NSW where they coalesced with fires that started during the same storm front.
