Yarra Ranges

Despite the occasional thump on Bill’s roof just above our bed from an enormous drip off the trees, we slept well. We set off around the track where we had camped and admired the ingenuity of some people with the semi-permanent shelters they’d made and the disappointment at some apparently vacated sites where the shelters and mess had just been left. Maybe the humans had been dragged off by a dingo and were being very unfair to them for not tidying before that happened. We drove to the kiln to learn about its history.

At the start of WW2, Australia was totally reliant on imported fuel and had a limited storage capacity so the Government heavily rationed oil. An alternative fuel for tractors and cars was wood gas which could be created when charcoal was burnt. In 1942, the Australian Government “made an Order empowering the seizure of any dead wood on private property; if it be suitable for charcoal production and is wanted for that purpose.” “A wood gas generator is a gasification unit which converts timber or charcoal into wood gas, a producer gas consisting of atmospheric nitrogen, carbon monoxide, hydrogen, traces of methane, and other gases, which – after cooling and filtering – can then be used to power an internal combustion engine or for other purposes”. I recall that, while at school, I went caving a couple of times and used a “miners lamp” that used a reaction between water and something to produce a gas that was then lit to produce light … and burn the bum of the person in front of me! However, that was a carbide lamp rather than charcoal. (Carbide lamps are powered by the reaction of calcium carbide (CaC2) with water (H2O). This reaction produces acetylene gas (C2H2) which burns a clean, white flame.). Kurth Kiln was built to a design based upon the patented of Dr Ernest Edgar Kurth which continuously produced charcoal. It commenced operation in March 1942 but transport difficulties combined with an oversupply of charcoal from private operators meant the kiln was used only intermittently during 1943 and was shut down soon after. While charcoal was a good source of power, its use was not without issue: “As the charcoal was used, refilling the hopper became a drama, the lid was opened and you needed to look in to see how much charcoal was needed to be added at a certain period, which varied greatly; but generally when you had your head over the hopper a violent explosion took place covering you with flame, dust and charcoal. Drivers of cars fitted with gas producers could be readily recognised by their lack of frontal hair and eyebrows!”Read more