By Mex Cooper
IT SEEMED the fire was hunting the residents of Kinglake, according to survivor Jason Webb.
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He and his family were among scores of shocked, bandaged and burnt Kinglake residents who gathered yesterday at the Whittlesea Community Activity Centre, where Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and Premier John Brumby arrived to offer words of comfort and promises of help.
Many residents arrived hoping to find loved ones but left devastated and weeping as news spread of those who had not escaped the inferno that devastated the town.
The survivors, some carrying everything they now own, spoke of an afternoon summer sky blackened by smoke and a giant orange fireball that hung over their town as flames engulfed their homes and killed their neighbours.
Marie Jones, from Canberra, was visiting a friend at his Kinglake West property when the fire destroyed his home of 10 years.
She said they sought refuge in an open grassed area at the bottom of his 72-hectare property when a burnt man cradling his infant daughter approached them.
"He was so badly burnt he had skin hanging off him everywhere and his little girl was burnt but not as badly as her dad and he just came down and he said, 'Look I've lost my wife, I've lost my other kids I need you to save (my daughter)'," Ms Jones said. Ms Jones was one of scores of survivors who registered their names with the Red Cross at the Whittlesea centre as authorities tried to match those listed missing with those found.
Ms Jones had not seen the burnt man or his daughter after the trio travelled to Whittlesea together in an ambulance on Saturday night, nor had she seen her friend.
Kellie Webb, from Kinglake West, was reunited with her husband Jason yesterday after she spent the night at Kinglake West Country Fire Authority station with her sons Tyler, 5, and Blake, 8 months, and about 200 other residents while Jason Webb saved their home.
Mrs Webb said she had handed out clothing and baby supplies to residents who had arrived empty-handed, including a woman dressed only in a bra and shorts. Mr Webb wore an eye patch as he described the flying ash and embers that had flown into his face while flames surrounded his home on Whittlesea-Kinglake Road.
At 4.30pm on Saturday, he said his wife was still convinced the couple would be able to spend a night out at the pub.
But with smoke approaching, Mr Webb loaded her and their children in the car and sent them to Kinglake Central to her parents' home. The Webbs had discussed their fire plan two weeks earlier and decided "houses are irreplaceable, people aren't", but as he began to pack the family's second car the wind suddenly changed.
"It didn't seem that bad and then the smoke just blacked out the sky and it had a real ominous feel about it," he said.
"Suddenly it just turned really nasty, almost like it was going to walk past us and went 'Hang on there's some houses over there' , and it just turned and came straight at us.
"It wasn't like a big panic. There still seemed like there was plenty of time and within five to 10 minutes it just turned into a war zone."
Mr Webb and a neighbour fought for more than four hours to save their homes, then another neighbouring house caught fire. As he hid behind his hot water system, pointing a hose towards his neighbour's roof with a wet blanket over his head, Mr Webb said he thought his home was gone.
"Then someone ran around the corner and said the CFA are here," he said.
As the CFA arrived and doused the fire, leaving the Webbs' red cedar home intact, Mr Webb said he broke down and cried.
"I was all right until then, I really was, I was doing well … and then I just started bawling," he said.
Mrs Webb said she had spent the night with "singed animals and a lot of crying people who had lost their homes but were happy to be alive", who stamped out fires with their feet and listened as the town's petrol station exploded.
Mrs Webb's parents, Phil and Marie Edmonds, also spent the night at the CFA and yesterday returned to their Cobham Road home to find the street flattened as if by bombs.
Mr Edmonds said he believed his neighbours had lost their lives as well as their home.
"As we drove out he was at his trailer looking as though he was hopping into his car to go," he said. "When I went back this morning the car and trailer were just burnt shells; the house was collapsed, I'd say they're gone. The horror."
The Kinglake survivors who sheltered at the CFA were yesterday led down to Whittlesea in a convoy, passing burnt cars feared to contain bodies, a dead horse, collapsed power lines and poles and the charred remains of what remained of their town.
But Mr Edmonds said the community spirit that the residents had shown throughout the night had convinced him he would rebuild at his property.
"I've got a new vision now of Kinglake of what small town community spirit really is," he said.