Emergency Services Commissioner Bruce Esplin said the conditions were a recipe for a repeat of the devastating 1983 Ash Wednesday bushfires, which ripped through Victoria and South Australia ...

(Diego Fedele/AAP PHOTOS) Ceremonies will be held across Victoria and South Australia to mark the 40th anniversary of the Ash Wednesday bushfires, which killed at least 75 people.

The bushfire tragedy is the worst natural disaster in Australia in 110 years. The previous worst bushfire was the Ash Wednesday fires of 1983 which killed 75 people.

It has been 22 years since the devastating Ash Wednesday fires swept through central Victoria. The fires destroyed hundreds of houses and killed seven people at Macedon and Mount Macedon.

For Lancefield CFA first lieutenant Stuart Mustey, the 1983 Ash Wednesday bushfires provided the impetus for the then 16-year-old to sign up for a life in firefighter overalls.

The death toll surpasses that from the 1983 Ash Wednesday bushfires, in which 75 people died in Victoria and South Australia, and the Black Friday bushfires of 1939, which killed 71.