During a period of three days in mid-February 1983, bushfires swept over 400,000 ha in southern Australia, killing 74 people, destroying more than 2,000 homes, and burning out 7 towns. This tragic repetition of the fires of January 1939, in which 71 people perished, was foretold by Noble (1977), whose monograph on the 1939 fires ended with a chapter entitled "It Can Happen Again." Ecologists familiar with the cycle of wildfire in such ecosystems assert that fires like these will recur.