The bushfires started in a number of ways: through the clashing of electric power lines, trees branches connecting with power lines, fires being deliberately lit, and through unknown causes.

The Victorian fires burnt an area twice the size of metropolitan  Melbourne, around 200,000 hectares. A great number of  people lost their homes, possessions, stores, equipment, machinery and stock in the fires.
The Ash  Wednesday fires claimed 75 lives in total, 47 in Victoria and 28 in South Australia. The largest number of  lives were lost in the Upper Beaconsfield fire with 20 deaths. Hundreds of others were burnt or otherwise injured. Twelve volunteer firefighters in Victoria were killed in the fire Beaconsfield. In Victoria, more that 2,000 houses were destroyed and several hundred in South Australia.
Most of the major Ash Wednesday fires were controlled on the day, some in two  to eight hours, others in a couple of days. Accessibility to the fires played a large part in how quickly fires were brought under control. For example, fires in mountainous areas were often more difficult to put out due to difficulties in moving the fire vehicles in close enough to the fires. In some areas, there was road access into the fires. *