Families flee as bushfire rages

Families took refuge in the sea or barricaded themselves in their homes as Australia's worst bushfires in 20 years swept through South Australia's Eyre Peninsula.

Four children were among the nine people confirmed dead.

The children, aged between two and 13, and their relatives died in cars as they tried to escape the flames.

More than 100 people have been injured, and three were unaccounted for last night.

The charred body of local school teacher Helen Castle was discovered yesterday in a shell museum next to a house at North Shields, where residents on Tuesday jumped into the ocean to escape the flames which burned through more than 48,000ha.

Police and State Emergency Service staff yesterday visited fire-damaged properties, finding a dozen people who had been feared dead.

Other states along Australia's tinder-dry east coast are bracing for fires as temperatures soar.

No rain is forecast for the rest of the week.

In Victoria, bushfires are raging unchecked at Carranballac, 180km west of Melbourne and near Balmoral, fanned by searing heat and rising winds.

The flames have reawakened memories of the 1983 Ash Wednesday tragedy, when 76 people died in Victoria and South Australia.

South Australian farmer John Cook and his family were miraculous survivors of the Eyre Peninsula blaze.

Mr Cook, his wife, Mary, and daughter Nicole, 20, were trapped in the centre of the bushfire on their property at Wanilla, northwest of Port Lincoln on Tuesday.

The sheep and wheat farmer could only marvel yesterday that the bushfire stopped at the door of his house as his family, their two sheep dogs and a cat cowered in the bathroom with wet blankets jamming the door.

Wanilla was among the hardest-hit townships by the blaze.

Mr Cook, a senior firefighter of the Wanilla Country Fire Service brigade, was among volunteers who thought they had contained the bushfire overnight on Monday.

But mid-morning yesterday, in temperatures of 40C, a wind change caused the fire to break containment lines.

Mr Cook took shelter in his bathroom and hoped for the best.

"It got a bit willing yesterday, it got pretty hot in that bathroom."

The exterior of his double brick farmhouse remained hot to touch yesterday.

Eight of the dead were from the Eyre Peninsula and the other was a tourist from Adelaide, police said.

Jodie Russell-Kay and her children Zoe, 11, and Graham, 13, died after their car hit a tree at Poonindie in dense choking smoke.

Adding to the tragedy was that their home was undamaged in a town where many others were razed.

Jack and Star Borlase, aged 2 and 4, and their grandmother Judy Griffith died in their car at Wanilla.

Mrs Griffith's husband, Wayne, took another car and survived.

Friends Neil Richardson and Trent Murnane died in their car at Wanilla, north-west of Port Lincoln.

Families had minutes to scramble to safety at the approach of the bushfire.

North Shields resident Russell Puckridge said: "When we came out of the yard, there were red cinders everywhere and we couldn't see 10 feet in front of us.

"We had about three minutes from the time we seen it until the house was gone.

"I was sitting in the car underneath the carport and next minute all I saw was 20-foot waves of fire coming up over the hill."

Mr Puckridge got his wife and child to the beach but when he returned home, everything was destroyed.

"I've been here nearly 15 years and this year we paid our house off, but she's gone, gone."

Prime Minister John Howard expressed his shock and sadness at the toll.

"It's a terrible reminder of the ever-present threat of bushfires and their devastating effect on this country."

South Australia's state Government yesterday announced grants of $A2 million to help fire victims, and said more money would follow.

Bushfires are a constant threat in Australia, although the Eyre Peninsula fires are the first major blazes of this season.

Two years ago, fires swept across more than 3 million hectares and killed four people in Canberra.

The risk is high along the east coast of Australia because temperatures are rising and country areas have high fuel loads from grass which grew quickly in rains in November and has now dried.

The Bureau of Meteorology said New South Wales temperatures would climb into the 30s and low 40s until at least Saturday.

- REUTERS, AAP