It is hard to know what there is left to say after the millions of words written and spoken about February 7 and the aftermath.

People will recall 2009 with the same sombre memories that Black Friday of 1939 and Ash Wednesday of 1983 still evoke.

But the memories of Black Saturday will be even more potent, given the fact it eclipsed those two terrible years in loss of life and property.

One hundred and seventy three people perished in the fires that swept through central and North East Victoria and Gippsland, razing entire towns such as Kinglake and Marysville.

Perhaps the most compelling feeling of all is that of impotence.

Despite one of the finest volunteer fire-fighting outfits in the world, despite careful preparation by those who lived in the fire-ravaged regions, there was nothing anyone could do to prevent the loss of life or to turn the course of events.

Even the most seasoned CFA volunteers were in awe of the fires’ force.

What was most confronting about Black Saturday was it turned on its head the conventional wisdom that houses protect people.

The idea that a well-prepared house can be defended in a fire appears shattered after many of the victims were found dead inside their homes.

The overwhelming shock and disbelief soon morphed into an overwhelming desire to help. If we had no control over the events of Black Saturday, we could certainly control what happened in its aftermath.

It’s a cliché that when the worst happens, people are at their best.

But it is a cliché because it is true.

The outpouring of generosity and offers of help was overwhelming, leading to cash donations worth a staggering of $378 million and many millions more in goods.

People offered their labour with clean-up and fence-building gangs forming overnight.

The most prominent was Kevin and Rhonda Butler’s Blaze Aid project which harnessed the power of hundreds of volunteers to build more than 500km of fencing lost in the Kilmore East fires.

Sometimes all that was required was an ear and a shoulder to cry on.

The Weekly Times’ horse writer Fran Cleland wrote a moving account of how she encountered the trauma and pain of survivors face to face as she worked in the Coles supermarket in Kilmore.

"We hugged people, held hands with them and grieved," Fran wrote.

A calamity of such proportion demanded an investigation no less than a Royal Commission.

The commission’s forensic study of what went wrong led to 51 recommendations, many of which have already being adopted and there’s more to come.

But if only avoiding such a disaster in the future was as simple as a list of recommendations. It is unlikely we can avoid fires of the scale of Black Saturday sometime again in the future.

The best we can hope for is that we will not see a repeat of such a loss of life.

Just how that will play out in practice is still unclear and the subject of some debate, but it will most likely rely on people making the decision to leave high fire-risk areas on days of extreme weather and the provision of refuges as a last resort.

The legacy of Black Saturday will linger for years to come. Painful memories and fears will surface whenever the new catastrophic fire warning is broadcast, the mercury pushes past 40C and the northerly wind howls.

If there is one thing Black Saturday has done it is to shatter our illusion that we can control every aspect of life.

Despite our technical sophistication and knowledge of fire sometimes the overwhelming force of nature is uncontrollable.

It is a valuable lesson that should never be forgotten.