Today marks ten years since the advent of one of Australia’s darkest moments. It’s the anniversary of the Black Saturday bush fires, which spread through Victoria during a particularly dry summer weekend and took 173 Australian lives with it.

It’s considered one of the most catastrophic fires in Australian history, and while we are fortunate enough not to have seen anything like it since, bush fires still dominate many parts of the country. Tasmania is, right now, battling their own disaster after dry lightning sparked a flurry of fires across the island.

Natural disasters plague the whole country, and climate change doesn’t seem to be going anywhere, so how have we learnt to adapt and fight against the worst that our climate throws at us?

Daniel May is a PhD Candidate in the School of History at Australian National University, and he talked to Sidd Sharma for Thursday Drive about the history of bush fires, their impact on Australian society, and why cultural burning methods developed by Aboriginal Australians could help to prevent the next Black Saturday.