Gospers Mountain

Gospers Mountain is an area of freehold land surrounded by Wollemi National Park, New South Wales. It lies about 20 kilometres east of the village of Glen Alice, 14 kilometres north east of Glen Davis and about 25 kilometres west of the Grey Gum Cafe on the Putty Road.

On 26 October 2019, a fierce electrical storm passed through the Wollemi National Park. One lightning strike ignited a tree near Gospers Mountain and started a huge bushfire which was to consume over one million hectares of land over the following 79 days and earned the name the Gospers Mountain Megafire.

It wasn’t until February 2020 that torrential rain finally extinguished this catastrophic blaze which stretched over 100 kilometres and reached the outskirts of Sydney.

In August 2020 Kevin Nguyen from the ABC published an account of how the team actually located the tree which spawned the worst fire in the state’s history - https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-08-02/how-we-found-tree-which-sparked-the-sydney-mega-blaze-bushfire/12510960

In October 2020, SBS looked back on the fire which killed millions of animals destroyed a hundred homes and many businesses and left communities suffering long term trauma and anxiety -
https://www.sbs.com.au/news/one-year-since-the-catastrophic-gospers-mountain-bushfire-started-victims-say-australia-s-climate-change-inaction-is-unforgivable

The mountain is situated in the land Parishes of Innes and Wirraba, County of Hunter, New South Wales and was formerly known as Uraterer. According to the Geographical Names Board of NSW it was renamed Gospers Mountain in 1970. In 2010, Dr Geoffrey Ford published a thesis entitled Darkiñung Recognition An Analysis of the Historiography for the Aborigines from the Hawkesbury-Hunter Ranges to the Northwest of Sydney. This work includes information on the identification and naming of Uraterer Mountain.

Excerpt from Parish of Innes County of Hunter (1903)

In June 1887, Robert Gosper was granted Portion 1, Parish of Innes, 80 acres of land on the mountain by Conditional Sale, thus beginning the mountain’s long association with the Gosper family. Portion 2, Parish of Innes of 100 acres was a Conditional Purchase by Clive Pickup of Windsor in 1907 for which a Certificate of Title was issued in September 1937. Portion 1, Parish of Wirraba of 66 acres was a Conditional Purchase by Wilfred Arthur Gosper of Richmond in October 1926.

Excerpt from Parish of Innes County of Hunter (1971)

Location of Gospers Mountain

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