 The widespread 1938-9 fires in Victoria, NSW, South Australia and the ACT similarly gained international headlines when the fires entered the Sydney suburbs, as did the 1994 eastern seaboard fires.The 1851 Black Thursday bushfires shocked colonial Australia with their ferocity, burning a quarter of what is now Victoria (around ).Lesser known is that about , or 15 per cent of Australia's land mass, experienced fire in the summer of 1974–5.