A firefighter stands in the debris as a bushfire rages in the Bunyip area. Picture: Jason South.
Larissa Ham
Former Channel Nine newsreader Brian Naylor's wife has reportedly been killed in Victoria's devastating bushfires.
Naylor, whose son died last year after a light plane crash near Kinglake, is also believed to be unaccounted for, Sky News reports.
Sky News reports Naylor's wife, Moiree, has been found deceased.
Hundreds of Victorians are returning to towns to find their homes razed by the bushfires that blazed across the state yesterday.
Raylene Kincaide, a resident of Narbethong, northeast of Melbourne, said her home had been destroyed and there was little left of the town.
"Everyone we know has lost everything they had - it's not nice," she told ABC Radio.
"I've been in Ash Wednesday but this is probably worse."
Murrindindi Shire mayor Lyn Gunter is at an airport in Queensland waiting to come home, and fears her house in Flowerdale, like most of the rest of the town, has been lost.
"We think it's gone. Our son he lives two houses away from us, he left at 9 o'clock last night when it got so bad he just had to get out. The back of his place was on fire, the house between us and him was ablaze,'' she said.
Mrs Gunter, who has lived in the area with her husband for 30 years, said she believed most of Flowerdale, and areas nearby including Kinglake and Marysville, had gone.
"I think probably like everybody else we're fairly much in shellshock,'' she said
"What we've seen (on the TV news) is just horrendous.
"We're just grateful our family is okay, I'm just really, really concerned about the community and those that have lost their loved ones.
"The support that they are going to need is just huge.''
Mrs Gunter said they had been lucky to escape the 1982 fires that ripped through the area.
"Like everybody that's there, you go there to enjoy the environment and you realise there is a risk of bushfire but I don't think anyone could have predicted anything like this at all.''
Jim Scott, a resident of Kinglake for 22 years, said the loss of life was devastating.
"This horrific wind came through and just took the roof off our house, our shed," he told the Nine Network.
"I've never seen anything like it, it was horrific.
"This is devastating, the loss of life."
Sue Aldred, another resident of the Kinglake area, said she lost a couple of sheds on the family property, but saved their house.
"All of a sudden we were in a raging inferno, there was coloured smoke and the noise was indescribable," she told the Nine Network.
"It was terrifying.
"I did fear for my life at one point, there was a horrible moment of indecision where I just thought ... I'm going to stay here and beat this flame back, and where do I hide? ... which building do I hide in?
"It was horrible."
Bruce Morrow, who owns an accommodation booking service in Marysville, said he and his family had been left devastated by yesterday's fires.
"It's a life-changing event, our lives will never be the same again, not only have we lost our own house, we've lost our business. The children don't have a primary school to go to,'' he said.
They have also lost several other homes. None were insured.
"We don't have any money, I wasn't wearing my wallet and neither was my wife. No credit cards, no licence, no cash, no nothing. We have lost everything,'' Mr Morrow said.
The family is currently staying with family in Melbourne and say it is hard to get information because all phone lines, including mobiles, are not working.
Mr Morrow said he believed at least five Marysville residents had died after staying behind to try and defend their homes.
"The couple that live next door, they decided to stay and they've passed away,'' he said.
Mr Morrow said the sound of the fire approaching about 6pm yesterday was intense and sudden.
"It really just sounded like a train, that sound is horrific,'' he said.
"When you're confronted by that sound and then there's a burst of smoke then you head out of there very, very quickly. There's no way you're going to stand there and face that kind of fire.''
"We know two single men who decided to stay and somehow they've actually managed to save their houses, they're still alive and telling the story.''
Mr Morrow said he was expecting a flood of phone calls from people who had booked accommodation in Marysville for Valentine's Day as they heard out about the extent of the fires.
with AAP
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