ENGLISH DEYEA NEWS

Country fast-tracks fire alert system after thousands caught off guard

William West / AFP-Getty Images The destruction in Marysville, Australia, includes the burned-out Kerami Gardens Resort.

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS | YEA, Australia - Australia said Thursday it was fast-tracking a nationwide fire alert system after thousands of people were caught off-guard by the country's deadliest wildfires, some of them blamed on arsonists. Police said they were questioning two people.

Police declined to say whether the two people had been arrested or even detained, and released a statement that described them as "assisting police with their inquiries." More than 180 people died Saturday in the fires, and the toll was expect to rise further.

Detectives responding to a tip found the men near Yea, which is about 12 miles north of Marysville, a town utterly wrecked by an inferno Saturday and where officials say up to 100 people were killed.

Officials blame the dramatically higher death toll than previous wildfires on the historically bad conditions and on the number of people who appeared to have waited until they saw the fast moving blazes coming before trying to flee. Many bodies have been found in burned-out cars or on the roadside.

Attorney General Robert McClelland said a plan for a telephone fire alert system had been before the government since 2004, but that state governments had yet to endorse it. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's government had "driven this issue hard" since it was elected in 2007, he said.

"Clearly a warning system would be useful," McClelland told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio.

Bickering between states
The Australian newspaper reported Thursday that privacy laws and bickering between states over funding had derailed plans to have such a system installed before the weekend blazes in Victoria state.

Thousands of mostly volunteer firefighters were still battling more than a dozen fires across the state Thursday, a day after some residents of towns scorched off the map were allowed returned home.

A huge police investigation is under way, including specialist arson investigators. They have concluded that the fires had six separate sources, four of which were not suspicious. Foul play was suspected in the fire that destroyed Marysville and in another deadly fire, known as the Churchill fire.

Wildfire arson carries a maximum penalty of 25 years in prison, but authorities have said they will lay murder charges if they can. Murder carries a maximum life sentence.

McClelland said he backs a system that sends a barrage of automated text messages to all phones in a targeted geographic area.

Australia's largest telecommunications company, Telstra Corp. has the capability now to install such a system but had been blocked by privacy laws that stop private numbers being handed out, said managing director David Quilty.

The government "is now looking to move expeditiously" to change privacy laws that prevent the national telephone number data base from being accessed by emergency services, Quilty told ABC radio.

Rain Wednesday night led to several fire alerts being downgraded. But residents in some areas were warned to remain vigilant as large fires continue to rage, Country Fire Authority spokesman Mark Glover said.

"It's dampened down things in the southern part quite nicely," Glover told ABC.

Authorities seal off towns
After the fires, authorities sealed off some towns because the grim task of collecting bodies from collapsed buildings was proceeding slowly and to prevent residents from disturbing potential crime scenes, including Marysville.

Victorian state Premier John Brumby said there could be 50 to 100 fatalities in Marysville, a town of just 500 people before the fires. Eight residents have been confirmed dead.

More than 400 fires ripped through Victoria on Saturday, destroying more than 1,000 houses, leaving some 5,000 people homeless, and scorching 1,100 square miles of land. The official death toll is 181, and expected to exceed 200.

The blazes were fed by 60-mph winds, record heat and a severe drought.

Some of the survivors were living in tents erected by emergency services on sports fields. Others stayed with friends or at relief centers.

Rudd on Wednesday ordered officials to loosen regulations giving survivors access to a package of 10 million Australian dollars ($6.6 million) cash payments after complaints about red tape.

The Red Cross said its government-backed wildfire fund had received more than 33 million Australian dollars ($22 million). Indonesia pledged $1 million to help rebuild schools and other public buildings destroyed in the fire and said it would send forensic experts to help identify the dead.

The tragedy is the worst natural disaster in Australia in 110 years. The previous worst bushfire was the Ash Wednesday fires of 1983, which killed 75 people.

Scientists blame global warming
The fires have increased pressure on the prime minister to take firm action on climate change as scientists blamed global warming for conditions that fueled the disaster.

Australia is particularly vulnerable to climate change because of its hot, dry environment, but dependent on coal-fired power, Rudd has set a target to cut overall greenhouse gas emissions by only 5 percent by 2020.

Australia is the most fire-prone country on Earth, scientists say. Most of its bushfires are ignited by lightning. Fire officials monitor lightning strikes and any fire that does not correspond with a strike is assumed to be started by people, either accidentally or deliberately.

Officials say the golden rule of surviving forest fires is to evacuate early or stay and defend their homes, but experts say that it appears many victims panicked and fled at the worst time. Some were incinerated in cars as they tried to outrun the flames.