By By Paul Wallis Feb 8, 2009 in Environment Thousands of people are homeless, 22 are severely injured, and several towns are still under threat. Police are searching for more bodies. The speed of the fires preempted the usual well organized evacuations. Australian fires: 173 dead, unknown number missing Australia PM Kevin Rudd calls bushfires 'mass murder' Firebugs in Australian Bush Fires Labeled Mass Murderers More The usual practice with big fires is a well organized operation, evacuations are carried out systematically, and lives are rarely lost. Australia’s firefighters are all highly experienced, and they know how to handle most fires, arson related or not. Not this time. A huge area went up like a match head. People who’ve lived through bushfires before were taken completely by surprise. I’ve never even heard of a bushfire where you couldn’t smell it beforehand. Fires travel downwind, and the smell of burning eucalypts is quite unmistakable. You can smell bushfires from a hundred miles away, literally. Making things much worse was the fact that people tried to drive out through the fires. According to police there are burned out cars everywhere, and these remain to be checked for fatalities. The toll could go a lot higher, if so. Police were actually issuing public warnings on TV last night not to try driving through smoke, and were told not to evacuate because of the risks. The A former household name, national newsreader Brian Naylor and his wife, were killed by the fires at Kinglake. The town of Police are now The significance of this is that lighting a bush fire requires enough knowledge of what you’re doing to survive doing it. You can’t do it accidentally. There were no reports of lightning strikes prior to the big fires, only afterwards. An occasional fire can be started by campers, or stray cigarette butts, but those incidents are usually isolated, random things. It’s being called “terrorism”, and that’s a pretty fair description. The anger is getting as hot as the fires. Murder charges are fully justified and Meanwhile, trying to help the victims is the major issue. Some really have been left with nothing. Bushfires produce heroes with a sort of staggering frequency. These things are like napalm attacks, and it takes guts to look a fire in the face, let alone function rationally. One guy Bush firefighters have been known to fight fires for weeks in over 35C heat. At over 40C, the effect is continual dehydration. The fatigue factor is constant, and you’ll get a good idea of the kind of effort required by the size of the areas they have to cover. A cool change has made conditions at least bearable for the firefighters, but not much else. I've seen Australian bushfires where they blotted out the sun, from 40 miles away, and all you could see was a little disk of light through the smoke. There was a ground haze, covering Melbourne and Port Phillip Bay. I saw the 1994 Sydney fires, and I remember seeing something that looked like an a atomic bomb mushroom cloud in the south, where the state forest was practically wiped out. A fire that hits 220,000 hectares in about 24 hours, and a series of fires across a state the size of Texas, however, is something new. By statistics, this is the worst fire in Australian history, but it’s also been one of the most complex and hardest to fight. Thanks to the ongoing drought, the known risk factor for this summer was already high. Bushfires don’t usually achieve this level of surprise. The sheer size of the fires, which covered hundreds of thousands of hectares, was overwhelming.The usual practice with big fires is a well organized operation, evacuations are carried out systematically, and lives are rarely lost. Australia’s firefighters are all highly experienced, and they know how to handle most fires, arson related or not.Not this time. A huge area went up like a match head. People who’ve lived through bushfires before were taken completely by surprise. I’ve never even heard of a bushfire where you couldn’t smell it beforehand. Fires travel downwind, and the smell of burning eucalypts is quite unmistakable. You can smell bushfires from a hundred miles away, literally.Making things much worse was the fact that people tried to drive out through the fires. According to police there are burned out cars everywhere, and these remain to be checked for fatalities. The toll could go a lot higher, if so. Police were actually issuing public warnings on TV last night not to try driving through smoke, and were told not to evacuate because of the risks.The fatalities were met with near disbelief, then real concern. Deaths are so rare these days that the constantly increasing numbers came as a very nasty shock to the whole country.A former household name, national newsreader Brian Naylor and his wife, were killed by the fires at Kinglake.The town of Marysville was practically obliterated. It was a pretty little town, a sort of bush village, like the early days.Police are now investigating all fire areas for indications of arson. There are stories emerging of people relighting fires in areas brought under control after this train wreck.The significance of this is that lighting a bush fire requires enough knowledge of what you’re doing to survive doing it. You can’t do it accidentally. There were no reports of lightning strikes prior to the big fires, only afterwards. An occasional fire can be started by campers, or stray cigarette butts, but those incidents are usually isolated, random things.It’s being called “terrorism”, and that’s a pretty fair description. The anger is getting as hot as the fires. Murder charges are fully justified and are likely to happen Meanwhile, trying to help the victims is the major issue. Some really have been left with nothing. The Sydney Morning Herald has a series of links to emergency assistance. This is the normal approach in Australia, where the news media, government and emergency services coordinate to deal with bushfires.Bushfires produce heroes with a sort of staggering frequency. These things are like napalm attacks, and it takes guts to look a fire in the face, let alone function rationally. One guy rescued his sister’s family on the back of a little tractor Bush firefighters have been known to fight fires for weeks in over 35C heat. At over 40C, the effect is continual dehydration. The fatigue factor is constant, and you’ll get a good idea of the kind of effort required by the size of the areas they have to cover.A cool change has made conditions at least bearable for the firefighters, but not much else.I've seen Australian bushfires where they blotted out the sun, from 40 miles away, and all you could see was a little disk of light through the smoke. There was a ground haze, covering Melbourne and Port Phillip Bay. I saw the 1994 Sydney fires, and I remember seeing something that looked like an a atomic bomb mushroom cloud in the south, where the state forest was practically wiped out.A fire that hits 220,000 hectares in about 24 hours, and a series of fires across a state the size of Texas, however, is something new. More about Australia, Bushfires 2009, Fatalities More news from australia bushfires 2009 fatalities