Black Friday flames remembered- Monbulk’s Merv Fleming remembers the devastation of the 1939 B

MERV Fleming still recalls the blaze that threatened his family’s property during the height of the 1939 Black Friday fires.
The Monbulk man was just 11 years old at the time, but that didn’t stop him from trying to douse the flames.
Mr Fleming, now 82, was helping his father pick beans from the family vegie patch when the fire threatened on 13 January.
“All I remember is it was extremely hot,” he said.
“We didn’t know how far away the fire was but the smoke got thicker as the hours passed.”
The family rushed to put out the fire that threatened to burn more than 100 tonnes of firewood in a nearby paddock.
Using wet sacks and tree branches, they tried their best but failed to extinguish the flames.
“We tried to save it but the fire was too strong,” Mr Fleming said.
“It was absolutely hopeless.
“The magnitude of the fire was just too big and we abandoned the fight very quickly.”
Mr Fleming said the 1939 fires were the worst he had ever witnessed.
“We were all in a state of shock.
“We had never seen anything like it before,” he said.