History
The area was logged in the early part of the 20th century, and some remnants of logging remain (such as scars on some trees and a sawdust dump).
In January 2006, parts of the park to the north of the Kinglake township were devastated by a bushfire started by lightning during a severe thunderstorm. The blaze threatened to engulf the town, advancing to within a few hundred metres of the northern fringe. The town was saved by further thunderstorms, along with Country Fire Authority volunteers.
In 2009 98% of the national park was severely burnt by the devastating Black Saturday bushfires. Much of the town of Kinglake was destroyed and nearly a hundred lives were lost. As of 2010, rehabilitation work is continuing and sections of the park gradually being reopened.
Read more about this topic: Kinglake National Park
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“To care for the quarrels of the past, to identify oneself passionately with a cause that became, politically speaking, a losing cause with the birth of the modern world, is to experience a kind of straining against reality, a rebellious nonconformity that, again, is rare in America, where children are instructed in the virtues of the system they live under, as though history had achieved a happy ending in American civics.”
—Mary McCarthy (1912–1989)
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—Ishmael Reed (b. 1938)