MARYSVILLE does not exist any more. The historic mountain village, remembered lovingly by one resident as "God's own garden", is now a wasteland of ash and death.
Four days after Saturday's firestorm, bodies still lie in the street and just a handful of buildings are left standing.
'Marysville doesn't exist anymore'
CFA firefighter John Munday: 'It wasn't for lack of trying, it wasn't for lack of courage, we could do nothing - Marysville doesn't exist anymore.'
As forensic police scour the ruins for bodies and clues, the scale of the disaster is becoming more apparent.
"I've seen the inside of hell," said local bed-and-breakfast owner Ian Pearson.
He left the annihilated township on Tuesday, having lingered for two days in one of the surviving buildings.
"It's just flat ash. It's like it was never there," Mr Pearson said yesterday. "If you've seen pictures of Hiroshima, that's what it's like. The pictures you're seeing in the paper (of other towns), that's not representative — it's worse."
Fifteen people are officially confirmed dead in Marysville. The final toll may not be known for weeks but it is certain to be much higher. The latest estimates put the toll in the town at anywhere between 50 and 100 — or up to one in five who lived there.
"Marysville doesn't exist any more, Marysville is gone," Mr Pearson said.
The town, 96 kilometres north-east of Melbourne, is still shut off, even to those who once lived there.
The forensic police, clad in white, are moving carefully through ash-filled streets, looking for bodies and identifying those found — in homes, in cars, in the street. Some were cut down by the fire as they made their final hopeless, frantic, attempts to flee.
In some cases the forensic teams are unable to tell if one, two or three bodies lie in a particular spot, such is the devastation. Large guesthouses may yield several bodies each.
Police fear the worst; two refrigerated trucks have been brought to Marysville.
Days after the blaze, residents still don't know the fate of family and friends. But memories of Saturday are vivid.
Mr Pearson had precious little warning before having to defend his Darwin Street home and B&B, Delderfield.
He was putting out spot fires with a mop head when the sky went black and a "dirty big gum tree" crashed down, injuring his hand. "I didn't know what hit me because I didn't hear it. There was a 727 busy landing on top of me.
"I got back inside because I knew that was the fire front coming. The noise is just absolutely horrendous. You cannot believe how loud this forefront of wind is; it's just like a 727 landing in your living room.
"It's dark and then it all started to go light because it's just burning orange. It's just bright orange lights everywhere," Mr Pearson said.
For 45 minutes his home was surrounded by leaping flames. Exploding gas bottles sent orange plumes into the sky and shook the ground while he worked to stay alive without power or water.
"It was just appalling mayhem," he said. "Everything was burning all around me. I thought I was stupid to have even stayed but I thought 'I worked hard to build this home and property, I'm going to work hard to keep it'. Now I'm thinking, 'I don't know if that was wise' but I'm here, I'm alive."
Max and Val Cockerell also saved their home and stayed behind in Marysville. On Sunday Mr Cockerell and Mr Pearson surveyed what was left of their town.
"It's just absolutely, unbelievably spooky and scary because there's nothing left," Mr Pearson said. "It's just deathly silent and it's still smoking."
For two days, Mr Pearson's wife Jaqui didn't know if he was alive or dead. On Tuesday they were reunited and "had a hug that lasted a couple of hours".
John Munday, a 20-year firefighter and a CFA lieutenant at Acheron, north of Marysville, sheltered helplessly with his crew as the famous town burned. "If we'd had 500 Elvises and 1000 tankers there it would not have made any difference, it was that extreme." On Saturday afternoon he and his crew were driving to help fight the Wandong blaze when they got the call that fire had broken out at the old Murrindindi mill.
The fire had started on private property, but close to bushland, and was running hard over ranges towards the south-east. It was expected to threaten Narbethong in hours. It reached that tiny hamlet in minutes.
Mr Munday's crew drove south from Alexandra. "We got to Buxton, and it was a shocking sight down towards Marysville — a boiling mess, black, brown, purple boiling inferno above the area where we knew Marysville was."
They reached Marysville just ahead of the fire front, which was being swung around by a changing wind, now pushing the flames from the south.
"I don't think that I could find words to describe it: the incredible power of the wind, and the sky — it was black — and the air was just full of burning embers and rocks," Mr Munday said.
The plan to defend Marysville was abandoned and, as the fire worsened, the priority became to save the crew.
Slowly they made their way to the only safe area in town, Gallipoli Park oval.
Many residents had gathered there already. Cars were strewn about, one crushed by a fallen tree, another alight and abandoned in panic. The pavilion was on fire.
"We… went into our emergency entrapment procedures, which is we all get in the back, and we huddle down, pull our full equipment on and blankets, and just try to bunker down and try to get through it. The heat and the wind and the ferocity of the fire were indescribable. All around us, the whole town, within a matter of seconds it seems, the whole town was just engulfed."
Allawah Country Cottages owner Jenny Pullen lost her bed-and-breakfast business and home. Her son and daughter lost their homes too.
As the danger grew on Saturday, she took her 81-year-old mother to Alexandra. She and her husband Graeme then tried to return to Marysville to protect their property. They came to a roadblock, where the policeman said they'd have a 50 per cent chance of coming out alive if they proceeded.
"We still kept going until we saw the red ball coming towards us," Mrs Pullen said. "Then we turned around and thought 'Our lives are worth far more than this'."
Like other Marysville survivors, Mrs Pullen is staying in Alexandra and is not allowed back to see what has happened to the place she knew as "God's own garden". She shares information with others about who has survived and who has died.
"We've got so many close friends that we're never going to see again," she said. "I knew a fire would come to Marysville some time but never, ever did I think there would be the mass destruction that's there. There's no Marysville," she said.
Mr Munday feels a sense of helplessness that he wasn't able to stop the nation's worst firestorm. "I just want people to know that it wasn't from lack of trying, it wasn't from lack of courage. It was a mountain too high to climb. We could do nothing, and it's a horrible, horrible, horrible feeling."
