After the 2004 fires in Victoria this was also a problem, not so much from mudslides but from the fact that the vegetation that had slowed the water down before it got into the creeks and storages was now absent. The water quality from catchments that have experienced a high-intensity wildfire takes almost a generation to recover its "original" status.

The catchments around Kinglake and Marysville are Melbourne's major water supply. It was in the rather protected catchment of Wallaby Creek (not far from Kinglake) that my thesis supervisor, the late Dave Ashton, did most of his research that made him the Mountain Ash ( Eucalyptus regnans, the dominant species in Wet Sclerophyl Forests and, at a measured 366', the tallest tree ever; even now the remnants are the tallest angiosperms) guru. One of my treasured memories is his request for me to climb into the canopy to install a pulley system so he could measure temperatures at various levels in the canopy. Abseiling down while the sun was setting, I was above the 60' high understory and all I could see around me was salmon-coloured trunks.

Magic! And all now incinerated, I suspect.

Cheers, Rowan