( CNN ) -- Australia 's bushfires have such a long and destructive history there 's almost no day of the week that has n't been dubbed `` black '' or `` ash '' to mark a major conflagration . There was Black Thursday in Victoria in 1851 , which destroyed five million hectares and claimed 12 lives -- the first large-scale bushfire in the history of white settlement in Australia . Since then there 's been Red Tuesday in 1898 in Victoria , which consumed 2,000 buildings , Black Friday in Victoria in 1938 that killed 71 and destroyed 3,700 buildings , and Ash Wednesday in the early 1980s that left 71 dead in the state of South Australia . Most recently in 2009 , Black Saturday claimed 173 lives in the state of Victoria in southern Australia -- many of the victims unable to even get the distance of their own driveways before they succumbed to the intense radiant heat generated by a bushfire . Many argue that Australia 's catastrophic bushfires are simply a fact of life on a continent where its flora , heavy with combustible eucalyptus oil , constitute something of a seasonal time bomb . Others say more sinister man-made factors are at work . Changing climate . Australia has had a troubled relationship with climate change -- its confused policies on a controversial carbon tax are credited with felling the Labor Party at the last election , while the new government controversially disbanded the country 's Climate Commission -- but scientists say the latest bushfire season may turn up the heat on the climate-change skeptics . While the jury is still out on whether climate change is making conditions perfect for large-scale bushfires , scientists agree that bushfire seasons -- a regular occurrence on the Australian seasonal calendar -- are getting longer and the fires more intense . According to David Bowman , professor of forest ecology at the University of Tasmania , who has studied bushfires for more than 30 years , bushfire behavior is showing signs of change . `` The problem with Australia is that the records are pretty shallow , which makes it really difficult to talk conclusively about any of the fire activity . But when you piece everything together there 's some very convincing evidence . Aggressive fires . `` Even the firefighters are reporting really unusual behavior , '' said Bowman , adding that firefighters are fighting bigger and more aggressive fires . `` Normally at night -- and this is borne out by firefighters in the United States -- the fire will quell as the temperature cools . But firefighters are saying that because of the heat , bushfires are burning just as fiercely at night . It 's all getting pretty worrying . '' He said duration was also a factor that was changing in bushfire behavior . `` It 's no big deal to have a fire in October but to have one that has burned like this for more than a week at this level of intensity is unprecedented . `` We are now looking at really catastrophic fire weather -- for October it just does n't compute . '' Anatomy of a bush fire : How Australia 's explosive forest fires work . A nation built on fire . Fire has been part of the Australian landscape since the dawn of time and its people have used fire as a farming tool for more than 40,000 years . One of the earliest colonial watercolors shows an Aboriginal man gently setting fire to land that now makes up Sydney 's most expensive waterside suburb of Vaucluse . Known as fire-stick farming , this mosaic of fire management systems not only flushed out game such as kangaroos and possums , it created new growth which in turn attracted more game . With indigenous people no longer part of the forest management equation , some scientists argue the fuel load that builds up from Australia 's notoriously combustible vegetation is now one aspect that needs to be addressed . Pyrogeography . Meanwhile , the emerging academic discipline of pyrogeography is looking at bushfires in Australia -- not just as a one-off catastrophic event -- but as part of an interconnected whole where forest fires around the world feed climate change and make conditions ripe for the propagation of even more fires . Bowman says that deforestation fires alone -- the fires that have been used to destroy forests since the industrial revolution -- account for about one-fifth of all carbon dioxide committed to the atmosphere . `` That 's a very significant component in global warming , '' he said . One thing that is being noticed by scientists is that black carbon from forest fires is landing on ice sheets and accelerating ice melt . Slippery factors . `` These are tricky and slippery factors because there are places where feedback from fires is actually causing cooling , especially in places where the loss of forest has caused the snow to lie for longer leading to regional cooling . '' Vegetation and natural conditions may change dramatically between New South Wales , Sumatra and California , but one thing these fires all share in common is that they are becoming more regular because the climate is becoming warmer . Bowman said that vegetation in parts of Victoria , which normally completely regenerates over a 50-year cycle , is now being burned as often as three times in the period of one decade . The particles from forest fires , he said , actually inhibit rainfall contributing to regional drying and warming , which creates a weather cycle conducive to fires . The problem for scientists , he added , was in connecting the dots with these patterns . `` It 's like trying to find needles in haystacks . ''
Australia has a long history of fires that predates white settlement . Scientists say that , despite shallow records , bushfire records are getting longer . Firefighters are saying that fires are becoming larger and more aggressive . One scientist says that fires around the world are contributing to global warming .