AUSTRALIA: Street after street in Australia's capital city have been laid waste by a ferocious blaze which has destroyed lives and homes and left nothing but charred devastation in its wake. Survivors and firefighters spoke yesterday of the speed and size of the inferno as three blazes merged to form one massive firestorm.
"The most terrifying thing was the sound of explosions. It sounded like a war zone," said volunteer firefighter Simon Corbell, who is also health minister of the Australian Capital Territory.
Another seasoned firefighter, Marty Bennett, a ranger with the forests department, described the wall of fire that destroyed his house as the worst he had ever seen. "It was as far as you could see. We had to high-tail it out of there and it hit the house like nobody's business," he said.
His house adjoined the depot where he worked and that, too, was destroyed. "I went on last night to save seven houses in Duffy and that was good," he added, his face still burning from the searing heat. "If I had lost my house at least I could save someone else's,"
Some residents were allowed to return to the charred remains of what once were their family homes and streets now barely recognisable. Their empty avenues were strewn with electrical cables and light poles stretched, bedraggled, across scorched gardens.
Charred remains of native birds were scattered among hundreds of burnt-out cars which littered the once-picturesque streets. In Eucumbene Street, Duffy, the full force of the firestorm was evident; in one stretch of 21 homes, just two remained.
Corbell said he found the sound of explosions the most terrifying. "There was the sounds of large bangs - whether they were trees exploding or gas bottles or gas exploding, I don't know. The sky went black, it was completely dark, then the sky alternated between a black and a red glow," he said.
John Flannery, a resident of Eucumbene Street, said: "Fireballs were preceding the fire itself - balls of fire landing on the ground, lighting the trees, lighting the grass, The trees in front of our house were on fire, the grass was on fire and this enormous wind and force and noise was all around us. It was deafening, frightening."
Many battled flames with garden hoses and buckets filled from swimming pools. "We just got a few precious things out and the family dog and within two minutes the house was just gone," Tony Walter told the Prime Minister, John 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."
He had been treated at a hospital with burns to his hands. "It all happened so quickly."
Tracey Snape, a mother of four, said there was no warning the fire was so close and burst into tears when firefighters rushed into her house to evacuate her family. "By the time we were half way down the street, the house was gone," she said.
She returned yesterday to the house she now refuses to call her home "because there's nothing left". She said: "It feels like the end. You walk through the smoke into nothing."