Source;http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/australiaandthepacific/australia/4557179/Australian-bushfires-Black-Saturday-blaze-worst-inferno-in-countrys-history.html


Raging bushfires that have devastated towns and farmland across southeastern Australia have become the most deadly in the country's history after the death toll reached 76.

Authorities have warned the toll could climb higher as they continue the grim search for bodies in blackened and collapsed houses and charred cars.

It was estimated at least 700 homes had been lost and several townships razed as nine fires ravaged the state in 24 hours of terror that has already been dubbed "Black Saturday".

Authorities suspect arsonists are responsible for lighting or relighting some of the fires.

Police have confirmed the number of dead has eclipsed Ash Wednesday in 1983 when 75 people died in two states.

The February, 1983 tragedy was previously Australia's worst bushfire tragedy, as it swept across Victoria and South Australia.

There is little information about the locations of the victims, but 29 are known to have died at Kinglake and four each at St Andrews and Wandong in the country's south-east.

Several people were killed as they tried to escape the flames in their cars.

At least six bodies were found in one car at Kinglake and one woman's body was found in another vehicle, with crockery on the seat beside her.

Police have not yet given the gender or ages of the victims, but one Kinglake resident said three members of the same family, believed to include a 14-year-old girl, a nine-year-old boy and an uncle, had died in the same house.

Keiran Walshe, Victoria's deputy fire commissioner, warned that more children were likely to be among the casualties.

The extent of the damage has left the state, and the country, in deep shock.

John Brumby, the premier of Victoria, broke down while talking to the media about the number of people who had suffered severe burns.

He described the bushfires as "a monster that couldn't be controlled" and said the state had experienced "hell on earth".

Kevin Rudd, the prime minister, announced emergency funding for the state and has offered to send in the army to help firefighters.

"Hell in all its fury had visited ... many good people lie dead," he said.

News of the escalating death toll came as horrifying eyewitness accounts of the fires started to emerge.

Residents of the worst-hit regions told of how a thick blanket of black ash blotted out the sun, leaving a 'horrible orange glow'.

Others described trees "exploding" and roads "peppered with burnt out cars".

Many people abandoned their homes to shelter in their swimming pools and dams as the flames closed in around them.

One Kinglake resident said "it rained fire".

Another witness, in Marysville, described the town as "a warzone, like a bomb had been dropped".

Strathewen resident Mary Avola said her husband of 43 years, Peter Avola, was among those killed.

"He was behind me for a while and we tried to reach the oval but the gates were locked," she told Melbourne's Herald Sun.

"He just told me to go and that's the last time I saw him."

Firefighter Richard Hoyle described the scene as "a holocaust".

"The road is riddled with burnt-out cars involved in multiple collisions and debris," he said.

A cool change is now helping firefighters tackle the flames, but Mr Brumby warned the only thing that could put the fires out was rain.

Bruce Esplin, emergency services commissioner, said nature had given Victoria "a beating of unimaginable proportions" and warned worse could be to come as the baking summer continues.

Wildfires are a natural annual event in Australia, but the ongoing drought, warm winds and recent spate of extremely hot weather have combined to create the deadly conditions.

Bushfires have killed more than 250 people in Australia in the last 40 years.

These fires are absolutely insane. =( I can't believe the loss that Victoria and the rest of Australia has suffered. And it looks as though we'll be doubling the up-til-now death toll with this batch of fires.

We had a speaker at uni yesterday, and he said that he fears that one of his dear friends has been killed in the fires. This friend of his spoke to his wife last, on his mobile phone, before he was never heard from again. His last words were "I can see flames at the end of the street." Hearing that sent shivers through me. =(

And to think that someone deliberately LIT them??? That's awful and disgusting.

It's raining torrentially here... I wish there was some way that we could trade weather.

It's a shame some of the water from the flooding up north can't be sent down there... a couple of days of their rain... if only.

So sad :(

I dunno if these pics will work.

Been watching on news.. Really sad. Even worse that some tool started it all.
Pretty sure the death toll is in the seveties.

Apparently some of the fire wasn't started on purpose...but it didn't help that some idiot went along trying to make it a whole lot worse and hindering firefighters efforts.

Been trying to avoid it to be honest, its all quite sad. Just can't believe whole towns were just burned down. Its crazy.

One of the scary parts is seeing the burnt out cars. They were talking on the news just before and apparently a lady was found in her car...all her personal possessions were in the car...she was trying to escape but the fire was just too quick.

And it's surreal...because while we are going thru the fires...the northern states are going thru floods...

There were families of up to 6 people found in cars. There was a car accident with about 4 cars... a number dead... and they can't tell yet... was it the accident that killed them, or was it the fires.

as someone who has worked closely with firefighters. that last picture speaks a million words if people would just realize what it takes to sink a firefighter to their knees, espec a captain

The death toll from Victoria's bushfires has risen to 84, police say, in what has officially become Australia's deadliest bushfires disaster.

As dozens of blazes continued to rage on Sunday night, it seemed certain that the rapidly-unfolding disaster would claim many more lives.

By 8.30pm (AEDT), at least 750 homes had been destroyed, more than 330,000 hectares burnt out - 220,000ha alone in the Kinglake Complex wildfire - while authorities said some fires could take weeks to contain.

Entire towns were wiped out while communities in Dederang, Taggerty and Glenburn in the state's north were still under threat on Sunday night, almost 36 hours after the first fires were sparked by record heat and winds on Saturday.

"Hell and all its fury has visited the good people of Victoria in the last 24 hours," Mr Rudd told reporters in the fire-ravaged Yarra Valley.

"Many good people now lie dead. Many others lie injured.

"This is an appalling tragedy for Victoria but, because of that, it's an appalling tragedy for the nation.

"The nation grieves with Victoria tonight."

Part of the article which is rather long.

I've only been to Victoria in winter when it poured with rain for my entire 3 weeks there, so I just find this so shocking. I really feel for all of those people who've lost friends, family and homes. For once it makes me almost grateful for the freezing weather we have here at the moment.

Victoria is one of those states that goes from one weather extreme to another... most of Australia is like that actually... never know what you're going to get. :(

barely rains here anymore. everything's so dry and brittle.

Hey, how affected is Melbourne at the moment? I'm ignorant for not knowing more precisely the locations of the fires. Are the outskirts of Melbourne at all affected?

king lake, marysville, gippsland. they've all been pretty badly hit. here's a map, not sure if it'll work though: map.

One-hundred-and three people have been confirmed dead in the ferocious bushfires that ripped through Victoria at the weekend.

The staggering death toll makes these blazes — some of which are still burning — the greatest natural disaster in Australia's history and authorities warn the number of fatalities is likely to rise even further.

"It's now at 108 and still likely to climb unfortunately," Country Fire Authority state duty officer Mark Glover told ABC Television.

PHOTOS: Fatal inferno

According to police figures, another 11 people were found dead at Kinglake West, north of Melbourne, taking that community's toll to 20 while another four bodies were found at Marysville taking that town's toll to eight.

Only one building was left standing at Marysville after the inferno swept through on Saturday.

The latest death toll surpasses the toll from the 1983 Ash Wednesday bushfires, in which 75 people died in Victoria and South Australia, and the Black Friday bushfires of 1939, which killed 71.

At least 750 homes were destroyed in the fires and more than 330,000ha burnt out, and authorities say some fires could take weeks to contain.

Have you been affected by these devastating fires? Send us your stories and photos

Ingenious place to take cover

As a "fireball" engulfed a home in Kinglake, three residents took refuge in a wombat hole.

"By the time I got my neighbours and got back to my house, we were under full fire attack," she told TODAY.

"I looked out the front or out the backyard and noticed that most of this had burnt by then and thought, 'We just need to run and we need to run now'."

With a neighbouring mother and son and also her dog, she moved downhill to a nearby creek but found it provided little cover.

It was then that a split-second decision to huddle in the wombat hole saved their lives.

"We just made a canopy of wet sheets and curtains that we had with us and just hid [in the burrow]," she said.
(Read more: Horse saves farmer from blaze)

Mother couldn't save children

Among the other tragic stories to emerge from Kinglake were of a young boy and a girl burnt alive inside their home.

"The kids perished, their mother got out but she couldn't get the kids out," Kinglake resident Mary-Anne Mercuri said.

Ms Mercuri also spoke of sisters in their 20s whose bodies were found in the front of their rented house.

"Two young girls around the corner from me were found in the front of their house. There's no way they could have got out. They would have tried to escape but there was nowhere to go."

The mother-of-three said that when the fire arrived it felt like exploding red burning bullets were being shot horizontally at them.

"These big burning chunks started falling from the sky, there was a lot of power behind them. I guess they were exploding parts of trees," Ms Mercuri said. "We are lucky to be alive."

Kinglake resident Chris Harvey said his daughters Victoria and Ali, both in their 20s, told of a local man, Ross, who lost both his daughters and possibly a brother.

"He apparently went to put his kids in the car, put them in, turned around to go grab something from the house, then his car was on fire with his kids in it, and they burnt," Victoria said.
(Watch more: Survivors' tales of terror)

* If you need information on the bushfires, call 1800 240 667

* If you are concerned about family and friends, call 1800 727 077

Fires still burning

Thirty-one 31 fires are still raging throughout the state with five — at Beechworth, Churchill, Murrindindi, the Kinglake complex and Bunyip — causing the most concern, a CFA spokesman said.

DSE spokesman Geoff Russell said conditions had improved from the weekend with a cooler change coming through with moist air.

A southerly wind is pushing fires in a north to northeasterly direction.

"Our biggest concern at the moment is around Beechworth," Mr Russell said.
(Watch more: Rain falls in Beechworth)

The fire has skirted Beechworth, in the state's northeast, and is heading towards Yackandandah.

"There are seven or eight small settlements in the path of this fire and those residents have been urged to get their fire plans under way," Mr Russell said.

The Beechworth blaze has burnt 30,000ha and continues to threaten the communities of Stanley, Bruarong, Dederang, Gundowring, Gundowring Upper, Kancoona, Kancoona South, Coral Bank, Glenn Creek and Running Creek.

Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Christine Nixon said forensic investigators had begun work in the Churchill region, where police suspect arson was involved.

"At this stage we have a team at the fire at Churchill in the Gippsland Valley, which is certainly one that we believe was deliberately lit," Ms Nixon told the Seven Network.

"Our fire experts and our own investigators have suggested that the way that it happened, how fast that it happened, that there is good evidence to believe that it was lit."

Forensic investigators have also begun work in the Kinglake area.

"They're where the most deaths are, but wherever a death has occurred we investigate that as a crime," Ms Nixon told ABC Radio.

Its now up to 108:(

What! far out..

Thing with the cars is horrible to think about, just cant imagine being there with your family like that.

I hate how they keep saying its the worst natural disaster in Australias history. I'm pretty sure that a fire lit on purpose by some complete twit, doesn't count as a "natural" disaster.

Actually it was originally a natural bush fire. It was "helped along" by arsonists lighting in other areas and re-lighting some fires.

That's what I originally thought, but then the news seems to be pushing that it was ALL lit on purpose...so IDK anymore

i first heard it was natural, then that there were arsonists lighting other fires. the news loves to push it was a person doing it, makes a better story. still, anyone lighting fires in this season is a sick fuck.

Yeah, I've heard it was an arsonist too, and it's really pissing me off.
Who could be that stupid?
I mean, I know there are a lot of stupid people in the world, but jeez.