As early as 1835 , settlers and convicts in Tasmania , also known as Van Diemen's Land , knew the danger of fires as this Tasmanian Fire Insurance Company copper plaque clearly indicates. The company had its own fire brigade in Hobart.
Evidence of Tasmania's early bushfires was reflected in the artwork of Englishman John Skinner Prout (l805 - 1876 ) . The above 1847 watercolour of his graphically captured the Australian bush with the depiction of a bushfire devastated eucalypt forest in the rugged Mount Wellington area.
