Bushfires 'nearly contained'

5 Mar 2009, 8:42 pm   -   Source: AAP
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The last of Victoria's bushfires are nearly contained and authorities will soon release the remains of some victims.

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The first bodies of victims from Victoria's bushfires could be released to their families from Friday, almost a month after the deadly fires swept through the state.

The news comes as the largest two bushfires - the giant Kilmore East Murrindindi North Complex fire and the Bunyip Ridge blaze - were contained by late on Thursday.

State coroner Jennifer Coate said the bodies of four victims were likely to be released on Friday but said it depended on the circumstances of their relatives who would have to start funeral arrangements.

Families have expressed frustration at not being able to farewell their loved ones, but Ms Coate said the identification process was complex.

She said staff at the coronial centre felt the pressure of the anguished families and the responsibility weighed on them. "If there were a quick and proper way to complete the identifications and the release we would take that way and we would take it today," she said.

"But we must work to the legal standards of our system and everyone rightly expects nothing less of us." A team of 70 police are working two shifts a day, seven days a week compiling and reconciling evidence.

Ms Coate said it was understandable that victims' families were anxious to retrieve the bodies of their loved ones but scientific and circumstantial evidence had to match before they were released.

"We are working in unprecedented circumstances in terms of the depth, scale, magnitude and complexity of the catastrophe that struck our state on February 7," she said.

"All of us at State Coronial Services Centre are working in an atmosphere of extreme heartache all around us, extreme anguish and extreme loss.

"That is being conveyed to us every day in every way through the calls that come through to us, from the questions that coming to us via those endeavouring to support and advocate on behalf of families."

Ms Coate repeated her earlier belief that some victims of the bushfires may never be identified.

The official death toll stands at 210 but that could rise as police continue their search for more bodies in the remains of homes at Marysville and Kinglake. Ms Coate said that because of the nature and intensity of the fire some victims may never be known.

Cool, wet weather has allowed firefighters to contain the Kilmore East-Murrindindi Complex North and Bunyip Ridge fires, leaving only the 25,000ha Wilsons Promontory fire burning out of control.

The Bunyip Ridge fire blackened 26,200ha while the Murrindindi fire razed more than 168,000ha.

"It's a big relief," Department of Sustainability and Environment spokesman Lee Miezis told AAP.

"We thought we would get the fire to containment stage within five days or so but (with) the continued cool and drizzly weather we have been able to do so more quickly." Firefighters would patrol the contained fires for weeks to deal with hotspots.

The focus would soon switch to preventing silt from entering waterways, channelling run-off from tracks and rehabilitating control lines bulldozed into the bush.

ctoria's alpine region even recorded some snowfall on Thursday, just days after the state was on extreme fire alert. Mt Hotham recorded 1.2mm of snow with temperatures below zero degrees celsius from about 2am to 10.30am on Thursday.

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