Residents in bushfire-ravaged areas across Victoria tell the ABC about their experiences.

Christopher Harvey from Kinglake:

"There was no chance of fighting or taking care of this fire.

"Everybody's gone. Everybody's gone. Everybody. Their houses are gone. This is our house, this is it. They're all dead in the houses there. Everybody's dead."

Peter Mitchell from Kinglake:

"To lose everything but the clothes you are wearing and still feel lucky is a mixed set of emotions. I like to smile, what else can you do?

"I had five seconds' notice and all my fire plans went out of the window, despite all my preparation I couldn't save the place.

"We had to get in the car to see where it was coming from and by that stage we were met by a wall of flames 200 metres from our house.

"We did a u-turn, got back and my neighbour's house was already ablaze."

Daniele Marshall in Gippsland:

"At one point it all went black, we could see fire closing in on all four sides. Our last option was to go down to the back dam, chuck the kids on a raft and chuck blankets over us and try and hope that the fire would jump us.

"At the last minute, neighbouring houses who had already lost their property decided to do a dash down to our house and he said that we might be able to get through the road.

"Everything was on fire, we had to drive through fire to get out but we weren't going to leave the kids there.

"We wanted to get them to the safest possible spot so four cars tailed up against each other and just drove through the to get our kids to safety."

Wade Horton in Gippsland:

"It was coming from everywhere. It was just, when it came through it was just like, it was picking up s*** and it was flying.

"It came through there like a, there were tornados literally coming through here and over the top here. It was just literally fireballs and tornados just coming through. The whole place just went black."

The ABC's Michael Vincent was in Kinglake

"I came in with a CSA officer and it was just here there was still smoke drifting across the road. Lots of debris, trees, corrugated iron roofing, power lines dangling across and then the many, many, burned out car wrecks - close to, I'd say, 20 on the main road alone.

"[There are] obvious accidents, head-on collisions, and five cars concertinaed with a motorbike had gone into a ditch.

"It's quite scary to imagine what these people went through. And some of them apparently did survive.

"There were some cars being taken away last night by the police and I imagine there were bodies in those cars. I couldn't physically see any, but the police were taking them away.

"Throughout the night I'd wake up to the sounds of the [fire] trucks coming through and coming in and out, guys being relieved, the flashing blue and red lights sort of meandering through the valley and the streets of the towns."