Survivors of Australia’s deadly bush fires on Sunday described how a thick blanket of black ash blotted out the sun, leaving only a ”horrible orange glow” as flames bore down on their homes.
Police on Sunday said the death toll from the wildfires had soared to 49.
Stunned residents hit by the worst fire, north-west of Melbourne, recalled how they lost loved ones to the flames and desperately tried to help the injured, including children.
Entire townships were razed to the ground by the raging inferno, with television footage showing the hamlet of Marysville reduced to smoking ruins.
Witnesses told of trees ”exploding” with the intensity of the heat and recounted seeing burned-out cars abandoned as their owners scrambled to reach safety.
Strathewen resident Mary Avola escaped the flames but her husband of 43 years, Peter, died after they fled their home in separate cars trying to reach a nearby sporting oval.
”He was behind me in another car. He was behind me for a while and we tried to reach the oval but the gates were locked,” Avola told Melbourne’s Herald Sun website.
”He just told me to go and that’s the last time I saw him.” Authorities have found his body.
Marie Jones said she was staying at a friend’s house in Kinglake, where at least 12 people perished, when a badly burnt man arrived with his infant daughter.
She said the man told her his wife and other child had been killed.
”He was so badly burnt,” she told the Melbourne Age‘s website.
”He had skin hanging off him everywhere and his little girl was burnt, but not as badly as her dad, and he just came down and he said ‘Look, I’ve lost my wife, I’ve lost my other kid, I just need you to save [my daughter]’.”
Jim, from Tanjil South, was still seeking refuge in his swimming pool with embers dropping in the water around him when he called ABC radio to describe his ordeal.
”It’s almost like midnight and we can smell the fire … we’re still in the pool here and we can hardly see here, it’s so dark,” he said.
”We were copping embers from south-west of where we are … we’ve had some cracking lightning and we’re copping smoke and dust and God knows what.”
Another caller, Roger from Traralgon South, told how he tried to comfort his terrified daughter as powerful winds buffeted their home in furnace-like heat and an eerie orange glow dominated the sky.
”When I went on to the balcony I couldn’t believe the heat,” he said.
”It was so scary, my little girl, she’s five years of age and … she’s emotionally traumatised by what’s happened today — the horrible orange glow.
”She said ‘Daddy what’s going?’ and I said ‘It’s OK darling you’re fine’.”
Firefighter Richard Hoyle told the Herald Sun it was the worst fire he had seen in eight years on the job.
He said he passed at least two dozen burnt-out cars that had been involved in crashes or been abandoned on the road from Kinglake.
”The road is riddled with burnt-out cars involved in multiple collisions and debris,” Hoyle said.
”Trees on the side of the road … are still burning and they are just falling all over the road. There is really nothing left.” — AFP
