Four killed as fires sweep through Canberra

Hundreds of people began sifting through the charred remains of their burned-out homes today after the worst bush fires in the history of Australia’s capital, Canberra, left four dead.

The raging fires forced thousands of people to flee their homes and left at least 388 houses destroyed, officials said.

Hospitals treated about 240 people for burns and the effects of smoke from the fires that hit Canberra on Saturday.

Many were residents who battled flames with garden hoses and buckets filled from swimming pools.

Fire crews said they were overwhelmed by the ferocity and magnitude of the flames.

“I have been to a lot of bushfire scenes in Australia ... but this is by far the worst,” Prime Minister John Howard said today.

Police said a 61-year-old man died of smoke inhalation while trying to save his house, and an 83-year-old woman died in her home.

A 37-year-old woman was found dead at her burned-out home along with an unidentified body.

Officials said all fires had been contained by Sunday evening local time, although some areas were still smouldering. There were fears that strong winds forecast for Monday could reignite the crisis.

Police patrolled charred and deserted neighbourhoods following isolated cases of looting and suspicions that some fires might have been deliberately lit.

At the height of the crisis on Saturday, when a state of emergency was called, firefighters called on people not to panic.

The government and church officials described it as the sort of emergency that comes once in a century or two.

Many residents reported no fire crews in their burning streets.

More than 20% of the city was without power on Sunday morning and red hot embers fell, sparking fears more lives and homes could be lost.

A mist of fine ash blew through the streets and a thick pall of smoke hung over the city of about 320,000 people which is surrounded by drought-hit farmland and tinder dry forests.

Strong, dry Outback winds and soaring temperatures whipped up an inferno in its outer suburbs to the north, west and south triggering unprecedented havoc on Saturday.

Howard interrupted his summer vacation to tour the fire-scorched suburbs where one resident told him of the speed of the fire that engulfed his home.

“We just got a few precious things out and the family dog and within two minutes the house was just gone,” Tony Walter told Howard. “It just exploded.”

In Duffy district, Chris Houghton surveyed the charred ruins of his home after failing to save it from a ball of flames that roared out of trees and across his street.

“I was in the back yard and the heat got me. I was just burning,” said Houghton, who had been treated at a hospital with burns to his hands. “It all happened so quickly.”

The damage bill was expected to run into hundreds of millions of pounds as the fires razed homes, schools, medical centres and thousands of hectares (acres) of pine forests, said John Stanhope, chief minister of the Australian Capital Territory.

Many firefighters lost their own homes and possessions while fighting blazes elsewhere, he said.

The Stromlo Observatory, a historic telescope and science centre on a hill outside the city, was also destroyed.

After a tense of night of desperate work, the winds weakened and allowed fire fighters to tackle three major blazes raging around Canberra’s edge.

Helicopters clattered over the remains of houses reduced to tangles of charred timber and bricks. Front lawns and backyards were scorched black.

“It is a day of enormous sadness,” Stanhope said, adding that he expected the number of destroyed homes to rise to 400. “What we experienced today is a once in 100 years or 200 years experience.”

Defending emergency services against charges they were under-prepared for the inferno he said: “This was an event of such enormity, of such force and such devastating power that it simply ran over the top of us.”