Australians thought they were prepared for wildfires. Until Black Saturday.

The infernos that blazed across Victoria state last February were the most destructive in the history of a country that faces more than 50,000 fires in an average year. In the end, 173 people were killed and more than 2,000 homes, destroyed.

As a new fire season begins in Australia's south, residents and state governments alike say they are better prepared. The season typically lasts three to four months around the Australian summer.

"People are definitely more cautious and more prepared now," said Peter Denson, who lost his home in the devastated town of King Lake. His lot is still black with charred trees, though he recently put up a shed on it and plans to rebuild his home.

"I reckon if it looks anything like it did on that Feb. 7, people will take off," he said. "We were told on the radio before that day that it was going to be hot and windy but didn't really think anything of it. Now we'd get out of town the day before."

The scale of the disaster stunned the nation and prompted an evaluation of safety measures and policies.

While authorities stopped short of a forced evacuation policy _ which many Australians would regard as an infringement on their rights _ they created a new "catastrophic" warning level that may frighten people out of their homes.

A 15 million Australian dollar ($14 million) text message warning system has also been set up to alert people of a wildfire emergency, and rural towns in one state have designated safe places to evacuate to.

"We learned that we needed to provide greater clarity to the community so they know how to act, and to give them a greater awareness of the fire danger," said Leigh Miller, prevention services manager of South Australia state's Country Fire Service.

The fire danger system ranks all days in a fire season on a 1 to 100-plus scale, based on temperature, wind and the availability of fuel to burn.

Previously, any day above 50 was categorized as "extreme" and it was left to homeowners to decide whether to evacuate.

The revised system creates three levels above 50, topped with catastrophic, which means a fire may be uncontrollable and says that leaving is the only option for certain survival.

"We're not necessarily going to evacuate people, but this way it is very clear for them what is their safest option," Miller said.

The catastrophic rating was first used in mid-November in the state of South Australia. Since then, two other states have also had catastrophic fire danger days. While large fires did break out near towns on those days, the threats eased with a change in weather.