Casualties
A total of 173 people were confirmed to have died as a result of the fires. The figure was originally estimated at 14 on the night of 7 February, and steadily increased over the following two weeks to 210. It was feared that it could rise as high as 240–280, but these figures were later revised down to 173 after further forensic examinations of remains, and after several people previously believed to be missing were located.
A temporary morgue was established at the Coronial Services Centre at Southbank, capable of holding up to three hundred bodies. The Victorian Coroner compared this to a similar facility established after the July 2005 London bombings. By the morning of 10 February, 101 bodies had been transported to the temporary morgue. The Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine stated that it could be impossible to positively identify many of the remains.
On 11 February, fire authorities estimated that as many as 100 of Marysville's 519 residents could have perished. By 16 February, over 150 forensic investigators were engaged in searching the ruins of Marysville. A senior lecturer in fire ecology from the University of Melbourne estimated that the fires may have been burning at temperatures of 1,200 °C (2,190 °F), and concluded that, as a result, the remains of some people caught in the fires may have been obliterated. The final death toll for Marysville was later downgraded to 34 after a large group of residents who remained unaccounted for were officially located.
Among the dead in the Kinglake West area were former Seven Network and Nine Network television personality Brian Naylor, and his wife Moiree. Actor Reg Evans and his partner, artist Angela Brunton, residing on a small farm in the St Andrews area, also died in the Kinglake area fire. Ornithologist Richard Zann perished in the Kinglake fire, together with his wife Eileen and daughter Eva.
Read more about this topic: Black Saturday Bushfires