[Synchro909]

Back to the Australian context for Black Friday. Here is an extract from an account of the fires:

From December 1938 to January 1939, fires burnt out around two million hectares. 71 people died and more than 650 buildings were destroyed. The most severe fires came during a firestorm on Friday January 13, known as Black Friday.

I said in an earlier post that they burned 2 million acres. I stand corrected - it was 2 million hectares. That is 5 million acres. The death toll was not high by the stabdards of more recent fires, nor the number of houses lost but there were no where near as many people here then. If the same hgappened this year, the death toll would be many thousands.
The use of the term clearly dates from 1939 here but it it difficult to imagine a more different context.