Their car, nothing more than an incinerated wreck, has come to rest against a scorched embankment, just metres (yards) away.

A fragment of blue and white police tape flutters nearby in the rising wind, gusts which bring thick plumes of dark smoke from the surrounding hills. The sense of destruction is never far.

Like so many roads from Melbourne city in almost every direction, the once-scenic winery drive through the Yarra Valley is littered with such crime scenes -- cars engulfed by fires so intense they have leveled buildings, and melted fenceposts and roadside markers.

Police believe some of the fires which razed swathes of territory to the north of Melbourne on the weekend, killing by some estimates more than 200 people, were deliberately lit.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has vowed to track down the culprits, telling the Seven Network late Tuesday he would like to see them "rot in jail" if proven guilty.

Everyone has a story of survival or harrowing loss -- the supermarkets, hotels and streets of country towns across Victoria state are thick with them.

The best-laid plans were laid to waste by a "towering inferno" or an "inland tsunami" of fire. Others didn't prepare because, quite simply, it just seemed like another "stinking hot day".

Geoff Stewart, a rural firefighter of 35 years, has been leading strike teams to the frontline of flames since Saturday night and said the conditions were the most unpredictable he had experienced.

"I would just call it a blast furnace that went through so fast nobody and nothing could stop it," he said, wiping back tears.

"It surprised the hell out of me, I can tell you," he told AFP at the fire containment line.

Closing his eyes and shaking his head sadly, Stewart could not find words to describe the worst-hit towns of Kinglake and Maryville, which have been likened by many to a warzone.

"That is something we will keep to ourselves, and something we will all carry with us," he said.

Chaplain Russell Hildebrandt has been counselling evacuees and survivors at the Healesville relief centre and described the inferno as an "inland tsunami".

"It's just come in, swept through everything in its path and killed hundreds of people, who were caught completely unawares."

Speaking at a police roadblock just two kilometres from the fire front, Hildebrandt said he had heard unspeakable things.

"You name it, I've heard everything," he said.

"Down the road here there was a body just lying on the road. Police didn't know how it got there, declared it a crime scene. Somebody had obviously tried to outrun the fire and it caught them.

"There were other people who wanted to drive through the fire and got caught on falling trees," he added, struggling to contain his emotion.

As police gain entry to further fire-devastated areas they face the grim task of recovering and identifying the dead, with official estimates putting the likely number beyond 200.

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