20 years ago today, a large bushfire began in the western part of the ACT. The two-week long fire eventually destroyed large parts of forest and plantations in the area, as well as 470 houses in Canberra’s western and southern suburbs plus the Mount Stromlo Observatory. Four people died.
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I seem to recall WIN Canberra quickly scrambled together continuous coverage late that afternoon.
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Win broadcast a local edition of win news canberrra on that day.
10 news Syndey also had a report
Channel 9 footage at the time from Rick Moran 9s Bureau Chief in Canberra.
A emergency alert from ABC Canberra which was broadcast in the Afternoon.
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That raw vision from Rick Moran is absolutely harrowing - if you’ve ever listened to some of the fire scanners on Broadcastify during the summer you may well know some of the terminology used by the fire response controllers but in all my years streaming such scanner feeds I’ve never heard anything as scary as this when they’re on the radio to one another.
I was only about 14 at the time so I don’t remember a lot of vision from the actual events but I do remember feeling awful in that a lot of the places we visited on a school trip 2 years prior for Centenary of Federation 2001 like Stromlo observatory etc were pretty much burnt out and gone.
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I remember seeing raw footage in the TCN archives when I was doing work experience. Harrowing is the word - without V/Os or a soundtrack, the roar of the fire in the background is deafening and the stress in the firefighters’ voices is evident and very understandable.
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January 28 1986: Space shuttle Challenger exploded 73 seconds after lift off killing all 7 on board: CNN coverage of Space Shuttle Challenger explosion 1/28/86 - YouTube
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The Challenger accident was on the next day Australian time. A special news bulletin was added to the late night line up in addition to this 6pm one.
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The Columbia disaster was 20 years ago. Due to time difference, news coverage occurred the next day
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i was 11 that March but i have no memory of Columbia at all oddly enough
Tbh I was 31 and i have no memory of it either
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Same… I can barely remember this event.
I think 9/11 and resent events prior to this happening might have had an affect. If I’m correct, we were about to enter a war in Iraq at the beginning of 2003?
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It was 2003 though i have more recall of Gulf War 1.0 in 1991
Yes, but the 2003 war in Iraq may have over shadowed the Columbia shuttle disaster.
I remember it well. It all happened late Saturday night/early Sunday morning. I was on the air that Sunday afternoon at the old Hawkesbury Radio and it was discussed at length with my co host at the time. Just a day or two earlier, the Waterfall train crash south of Sydney happened. Both stories were quite prominent in the news.
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I remember turning on the TV and watching Weekend Sunrise or whatever it was at that time and saw it on there. I thought it was live but it might not have been. Either way, I definitely remember watching it and the news for the few days following - certainly wasn’t wall to wall coverage like the September 11 attacks or anything like that.
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May 4 1996 newsbreak.
Port Arthur reopens after massacre
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Seven News Adelaide tonight.
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i grew up learning about Ash Wednesday as a kid so shocking when i saw the reports a few years ago
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Ash Wednesday was one of the first big news events I remember as a kid. I only vaguely recall TV coverage being of news breaks during the evening. Rolling coverage certainly wasn’t a thing! And the next morning watching cartoons there were news updates being scrolled along the bottom of the screen which i don’t think I’d ever seen before. I guess a primitive ticker! And I think but could be corrected that it was a newspaper headline the next day that linked the term Ash Wednesday in relation to the fires, coincidentally on the religious day of Ash Wednesday.
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