Death toll in Australian wildfires rises past 170 Tanalee Smith, Associated Press Writer – 4 mins ago
WHITTLESEA, Australia – Disaster officials found charred bodies on roadsides and in crashed cars — grim signs of the futile attempt to flee raging wildfires fed by 60 mph winds, record heat and drought that caught even fire-savvy Australians by surprise.
As the death toll rose Tuesday to 173 in Australia's worst wildfire disaster, suspicions that some of the 400 blazes were caused by arson led police to declare crime scenes in some of the incinerated towns, police Senior Constable Cendra Jackson said.
The fires near Melbourne in southeastern Australia destroyed
more than 750 homes, left 5,000 people homeless, and burned 850 square miles of land, the Victoria Country Fire Service said.
Whole forests were reduced to leafless, charred trunks. Farmland was in ashes.
The scale of the disaster shocked a nation that endures deadly firestorms every few years. Officials said panic and the freight-train speed of the walls of flames probably accounted for the unusually high death toll.
"It was very quick and ferocious and took everyone by surprise," said Jack Barber, who with his wife, a neighbor, six cats and a dog sought refuge with five other people on a cricket field surrounded by trees in Kinglake.
"All around us was 100-foot flames ringing the oval, and we ran where the wind wasn't. It was swirling all over the place," he said. "For three hours, we dodged the wind."
Firefighters battled more than a dozen blazes that burned out of control across Victoria state, although conditions were much cooler than Saturday.
Forecasters said temperatures would rise later this week, posing a risk of flare-ups.
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9th February 2009
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