Australia fires: Australia Fires Intensify: 'It's Going to Be a Blast Furnace'

People camped on the beach and slept in small boats, they said, trying to shield themselves from flying embers as the inferno moved toward them.

The heavy smoke meant only a few people with medical problems could be evacuated by helicopter.

Among those on the beach was Justin Brady, a musician who just moved from Melbourne to Mallacoota, about 250 miles to the east.

He managed to salvage a fiddle, a mandolin and some harmonicas before abandoning the home he built and its contents to the flames.

The Sydney Morning Herald reported that he said he would return “if the bushfire situation should demand it.”