Wildfire' hell' consumes hundreds of homes

Australia’s deadly wildfires destroyed at least 640 houses and that tally was expected to rise today.

Hayden Lane of the Victoria Country Fire Service said 550 of the houses were in the area of Kinglake, north of Melbourne. The others were in nearby areas.

Police say at least 49 people have died in the blazes and expect the death toll will rise further.

High temperatures and strong winds created furnace-like conditions across southern Victoria state yesterday, though conditions eased today.

Witnesses yesterday described seeing trees exploding and skies raining ash as temperatures hit a record 117 degrees Fahrenheit (47 C) in Victoria and combined with raging winds to create perfect conditions for uncontrollable blazes.

“Hell in all its fury has visited the good people of Victoria in the last 24 hours,” prime minister Kevin Rudd said as he toured the fire zone.

Police said they believed the deaths included groups of people whose charred bodies were found in cars – suggesting families or groups of friends were engulfed in flames as they tried to flee. One official said an entire town had been razed save for one building, though no deaths were reported there.

Today several major fires were still posing a threat and state premier John Brumby said troops would be deployed to help thousands of exhausted volunteer firefighters battle on.

The fires were so massive they were visible from space. Nasa released satellite photographs showing a white cloud of smoke across south-eastern Australia.

Deputy commissioner Kieran Walshe said police suspected some of the fires were started deliberately and predicted it would take days to get all the blazes under control.

The largest of about a dozen big fires in Victoria ripped unchecked across at least 115 square miles of forests, farmland and towns north of Melbourne.

“The whole township is pretty much on fire,” Peter Mitchell, from the town of Kinglake, where at least six people died in the same car, said during the inferno. “There was no time to do anything. ... It came through in minutes.”

Marysville, a former gold-rush town of about 800 people 60 miles north east of Melbourne, was said to be almost wiped out and reports said residents fled to a football field to escape the flames.

In the town of Taralgon, Lindy McPhee watched in fear as a fire front edged closer to the town until rain began falling.

“It’s raining black soot,” McPhee told Sky News television.

In nearby Wittlesea, Sally Tregae described feeling terror as the fire approached.

“I saw trees explode in front of me,” she said. “It’s a horrible thing to see.”

Mr Rudd said he was “absolutely horrified” by the disaster and promised blankets for victims in the near term and money for them later.

Victoria’s Country Fire Authority deputy chief Greg Esnouf said yesterday’s conditions were “off the scale” in terms of danger. Another fire official, Stuart Ord, said some 460 square miles was burned by early today.

In New South Wales state, where several fires were also burning but not posing an immediate threat to property, police detained and questioned a man in connection with a blaze, but released him without charge.

Wildfires are common during the Australian summer. Government research shows that about half of the roughly 60,000 fires each year are deliberately lit or suspicious. Lightning and people using machinery near dry brush are other causes.

Australia’s deadliest fires were in 1983, when blazes killed 75 people and razed more than 3,000 homes in Victoria and South Australia.