January 20, 2003	Monday	Ziqa'ad 16, 1423

SYDNEY, Jan 19: Canberra’s worst-ever bushfires have gutted more than 400 houses, killed four people, seriously injured 50 others and knocked out power for a quarter of the Australian capital.

Exhausted crews who braced on Sunday for a second day of deadly firestorms were relieved when milder conditions prevailed and work could begin on bulldozing new containment lines.

But predicted high temperatures, low humidity and gusty winds over the next few days will again test the mettle of a mostly volunteer force clearly not up to the task of protecting the garden city.

Prime Minister John Howard, who cancelled his holiday to visit families who have lost everything, warned that the emergency was far from over.

“There are a lot of experts who are a bit nervous that it could get worse again before it’s finally behind us,” Howard warned.

Canberra chief minister John Stanhope freely admitted that firefighters were outclassed by the inferno.

“It simply ran over the top of us,” he said. “It was simply beyond us. It was a holocaust of an extent that we simply did not and could not possibly have had the capacity to deal with,” he said.

The more than 2,500 people forced to evacuate their homes faced a second night in schools and other emergency centres.

Many arrived with only what they were wearing, without even a toothbrush, having lost everything when their homes were devoured by the flames.

Jason Morris, a Duffy resident who lost his home and car in the inferno, described to a local radio station a miraculous escape as the family sped away from their dwelling: “We were just being swirled around in flames and smoke. The car windows were smashed in, which is when we decided to get out and run. We were surrounded by fairly big trees, and they were just being pulled out of the ground.”

Morris, phlegmatic about his losses, added, “It’s just Canberra’s Black Saturday, I’m afraid. What do you do? We’ve lost every single thing we have other than the borrowed things I’ve got on. It’s start all over again. It’s just the way it is.”

Canberra’s chief fire control officer, Peter Lucas-Smith, compared the situation to “Ash Wednesday” in 1983, when fires killed 76 people in South Australia and the neighbouring state of Victoria.

“The conditions we’re currently facing here... are drier than they were in 1983,” Lucas-Smith said.

Australia is experiencing its worst drought in a generation, with the southeast corner particularly parched and tinder-dry. Fires, some sparked by lightning strikes and others deliberately lit, race through forests of oil-filled eucalyptus trees at astonishing speeds.

Canberra is gripped by drought. Water restrictions have been imposed for the first time in 30 years.

Anthony Coles, a resident in the worst-hit suburb of Duffy, told Australia’s AAP news agency how fireballs careened down his street, consuming the houses, cars and trees in their path.

Coles, who battled with buckets of water from the swimming pool to save his own home, recalled: “It was an inferno. There is no other way to describe it. There were constant explosions, power lines sparking and giving off great arcs of electricity. The eucalyptus just looked like giant candles.”

Another Canberra resident to lose his home and all his belongings was Robert de Castella, who won the 1984 Boston marathon and gold medals at two Commonwealth Games.

Returning from holiday to the ashes of his Canberra home, De Castella said: “In one way I’m glad that we weren’t there because, being as stubborn and silly as I am, I probably would have stayed there beyond when I should have.”

Another installation in the path of the 35-kilometre fire front was the historic Mount Stromlo Observatory.

A firestorm incinerated all the telescopes, the computers, the records and the original observatory building dating back to 1910.

Said Vince Ford, who had worked at Mount Stromlo for 38 years: “It’s gone, it’s all gone. From a historic point of view, from a cultural point of view, from a scientific point of view, it’s an absolute disaster.”

The 320,000 residents of Canberra, 350 kilometres southwest of Sydney, have been ordered to stay home, fill their bathtubs, douse roofs and prepare to fight the fire any way they can.—dpa/AFP