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THE number of homes destroyed in Victoria's bushfires has jumped to 1831, in what poses a significant challenge for the state, Emergency Services Commissioner Bruce Esplin says. Data released today showed a massive rise in the number of homes lost - up from 1069 reported yesterday.

A MAN has been arrested in relation to a blaze in Gippsland which killed at least 21 people in the Victoria fires. He is currently being questioned by police. No charges have yet been laid, the Herald Sun reported. No other details were immediately available. Meanwhile residents of two towns in the Victoria fires zone are coming under ember attack from fires burning towards them. The ember attack on the Healesville-Kinglake Road cut off Toolangi from its neighbour Healesville as the massive Maroondah Yarra Complex fire, which is out of control and has already burnt through 35,300ha, moved closer. Country...

VICTORIANS have been put on alert as bush fires rage on a day tipped to have the worst fire conditions in Victoria's history. More than 100 firefighters are battling a blaze in the Bunyip State Park near Pakenham in Melbourne's east. Several communities are under threat from the fire including Labertouche, Jindivick West and Tonimbuk. CFA spokesman Dan Connell said several other towns are likely to be affected during the day. At 7.30am more than 150ha had burned. The fire burst through containment lines about 3am. Temperatures are expected to soar to up to 46 degrees in some regional centres...

FIREFIGHTERS in Victoria, New South Wales, South Australia and the ACT are bracing for a devastating weekend as record high temperatures, gusty winds and parched earth combine to produce an unprecedented fire danger, The Australian reports. A volunteer firefighter suffered burns to 50 per cent of his body after helping a neighbour fight one of six fires burning across Victoria, where fire crews are stretched to the limit. Six houses have been destroyed and urgent warnings have been sent to communities near the Bunyip State Park, Churchill, Kilmore, Horsham and Colleraine to leave their home or prepare to fight ember...

SYDNEY: Raging wildfires swept southeastern Australia on Saturday, killing at least 14 people and razing some 100 homes as scorching temperatures and gale-force winds combined into a deadly inferno, while floodwaters in the country’s sodden north continued to rise. Victoria state police said the death toll might exceed 40 as dozens of fires burned unchecked into the night. Some officials described the day as the worst in the sunburned country’s history of wildfires. More than 30,000 volunteer firefighters were battling fires after dark, when helicopters and planes that hand-dumped millions of tons of water on the flames returned to base...

AT least 25 people have been killed in Victoria's worst bushfires since Ash Wednesday, with the death toll expected to rise. Authorities will begin to assess some of the most horrific blazes the state has even seen as dawn breaks, with fears the death toll could rise dramatically. Police updated the confirmed death toll to 25 a short time ago and are expected to confirm more lives lost at a press conference later this morning. "I can confirm that the we now have 25 people dead at this point in time,'' Victoria Police Deputy Commissioner Kieran Walshe said this morning....

The Australian army will be brought in to help in the worst bushfires in Victoria's history. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd offered army troops to help firefighters control 26 fires around the state that have claimed at least 26 lives, injured hundreds and destroyed hundreds of properties, Premier John Brumby said. "The army will become involved, I spoke to the prime minister in the early hours of this morning when I was in Bendigo," Mr Brumby said.

The township of Marysville in central Victoria has been almost completely destroyed by bushfires and there are grave fears for the town of Kinglake, where at least 12 people are known to have died. Aerial pictures taken by the ABC show street after street of completely destroyed homes in Marysville. Most are just piles of rubble. Some still have walls standing and a handful appear to be mostly intact. In all 35 people are now confirmed to have died in the fires north of Melbourne and this morning there are unconfirmed reports of bodies being found in cars overtaken by...

FIFTY people are confirmed dead in bushfires that have devastated several Victorian communities. Police have just confirmed the new figure. 640 houses have been destroyed. While firebugs are being blamed for several blazes ravaging Victoria, the Country Fire Authority has confirmed that several fires are being deliberately relit by arsonists. CFA deputy chief Steve Warrington said an arsonist is hampering firefighters’ efforts in Churchill with an intense blaze taking hold. "We know we do have someone who is lighting fires in this community. While we often think it's spotting, we also know that there are people lighting fires deliberately," he...

A GREY army blanket beside Falls Rd covers a human-shaped lump. More than 15 hours after the fires went through, it can't be what it seems. It is just laying there on the roadside at the fringe of town like dumped rubbish. Two locals gently lift a corner of the blanket and look. The whole town is a scene of almost unimaginable destruction, but their faces are more desolate. It is a young girl, they think. They look again. Marysville is a close-knit town. Everyone knows everyone, but they can't tell who it is they have found. They only know...

THE death toll from Victoria's bushfires has risen to 84, amid grave fears for towns in the state's northeast as fires continue to rage out of control. Five people died at Flowerdale, two people at Hazeldene and three at Taggerty, while two more people were confirmed dead at Kinglake and a further person died at St Andrews. A person from Yea died in hospital. The toll already surpasses the 28 in South Australia and the 47 Victorians that died in the 1983 Ash Wednesday bushfires, while the Black Friday blaze in 1939 claimed 71 lives. ...Hundreds of homes have already...

CHANNEL Nine veteran Brian Naylor and his wife Moiree have been confirmed dead in the fires at Kinglake West, Sky News reports. Channel Nine had earlier said the newsreading legend, who lives in fire-ravaged Kinglake West, could not be accounted for. In a break in their normal programming, presenter Tony Jones reported that a body believed to be that of Moiree Naylor had been found close to the family's address. Eighty-four people are dead and at least 750 homes have been destroyed and 3733 people have registered with the Red Cross after evacuating their properties. The number left homeless is...

THE death toll in Australia's worst bushfires has hit 108, with TV veteran Brian Naylor among the dead. Firefighters have worked through the night to battle 31 fires across scorched Victoria. A total of 108 people have been confirmed dead in Australia's deadliest bushfires, with fears the death toll may rise sharply. 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...

PRIME Minister Kevin Rudd said arsonists in Victoria had committed mass murder as the death toll in Australia's worst ever bushfires rose to 108 this morning. The final toll was expected to rise further and fires were still burning out of control and putting towns at risk in the Beechworth and Yackandandah regions in the state's northeast. Amid speculation some of the fires were deliberately lit - and with reports yesterday that people were returning to relight blazes after fire crews had left an area - Mr Rudd said: "There are no words to describe it other than mass murder."...

Marysville is the town that disappeared. Once known as Melbourne's honeymooning centre, with its pretty guesthouses and century-old oaks, the town, about 60 miles from the Victoria state capital, is now a smouldering, post-apocalyptic wasteland.From the air, nearby St Fillans resembles a row of campfires - piles of powdery ashes with the embers trampled out. The landscape is deserted, with caravans, boats and burned-out cars abandoned in the middle of roads. Many appear to have been trapped by flying debris - huge sections of what were once walls which have blocked the road. A house under construction is untouched by...

The Queen has sent a message of condolence to the families of those who have died in the Victoria bushfires. The Queen said she was shocked and saddened to learn of the terrible toll being exacted by the fires. In a written statement, she sent her heartfelt condolences to the families of all those who have died and deep sympathy to the many who had lost their homes. She wanted also to convey her admiration for the work of Australian firefighters and emergency services for what she called their extraordinary efforts. The Queen's comments came after a phone call by...

THE DEATH toll from the nation's worst bushfires is expected to more than double, with the Victorian Government being advised to prepare for 230 fatalities.

ONE after another, the horrifying procession of helicopters brought the most seriously burned victims to the Alfred. The sheer number and seriousness of their injuries was so overwhelming the state's biggest trauma hospital ran out of morphine, calling for emergency supplies to treat the 20 most seriously injured victims. Patients started arriving at 9pm on Saturday and by noon yesterday 10 were on life support in an intensive care unit filled to capacity for the first time since it opened last year, the Herald Sun reports. Emergency doctors at the state's top burns unit could only compare the carnage with...

AUSTRALIA has been singled out as a target for “forest jihad” by a group of Islamic extremists urging Muslims to deliberately light bushfires as a weapon of terror. US intelligence channels earlier this year identified a website calling on Muslims in Australia, the US, Europe and Russia to “start forest fires”, claiming “scholars have justified chopping down and burning the infidels’ forests when they do the same to our lands”. The website, posted by a group called the Al-Ikhlas Islamic Network, argues in Arabic that lighting fires is an effective form of terrorism justified in Islamic law under the “eye...