The deadliest bushfires in Australia’s history wrought devastation yesterday, killing scores of people, destroying hundreds of homes and razing entire towns.

Officials said last night that 108 lives had been lost and the thousands of firefighters battling the blazes said that they expected to find many more bodies.

The fires began in Victoria on Saturday, the hottest day ever recorded in Melbourne, where temperatures hit 46.4C (115.5F). The flames were fanned by gales and burnt through 350,000 hectares. Fifty fires also started across the border in New South Wales, where temperatures reached 46C on Sunday.

Arsonists were blamed for some of the blazes, and two people were charged last night with starting fires. Kevin Rudd, the Prime Minister, suggested that arsonists should be charged with capital crime. “What do you say about anyone like that? There are no words to describe it other than mass murder,” he said.

Witnesses said that the sky turned to ash and rained embers. The fires that consumed houses in seconds turned parts of Victoria into something resembling a nuclear holocaust.

Many of the dead were said to have waited too long in their homes before fleeing and were burnt alive in their cars. Others made lucky escapes by diving into dams and local reservoirs. One group broke into a local pub to seek refuge.

In Kinglake, 35 miles northeast of Melbourne, a man with severe burns was kept alive for six hours by friends who dipped him in a pool until help arrived.

“It rained fire,” one survivor said. “We hid in the olive grove and watched our house burn.” The main roads out of Kinglake were littered with burnt-out cars abandoned by their owners.

Sam Gents, who last spoke to his wife Tina as she tried to rescue their family from Kinglake before the phone went dead, made a tearful plea on television early this morning, reading out his mobile number and asking for help to find her and their three children, aged six, 13 and 15.

“The last time anyone saw them the kids were running in the house and they were blocked in by fire,” Mr Gents said. “Tina is a tough woman. She said: ‘Don’t worry, the lady next door has sprinklers in her roof so we’ll be all right.’ But now all the houses are gone, so I just hope they got out.”

A 60-mile wall of fire continued to burn north of Melbourne and firefighters said that it would take many days to control. Another fire was also threatening Beechworth in Victoria’s northeast, and 12 fires remained out of control around the state.

John Brumby, the Victoria state Premier, described the inferno as Hell on Earth. “Tonight our state is in mourning,” he said, fighting back tears in a live TV address. “For so many of us the scale of this tragedy defies comprehension.”

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