Counting the cost
By DAVID ELIAS
Police are investigating the cause of the Ferny Creek bushfire that killed Graham and Jennifer Lindroth and their next-door neighbor.
The fire, one of three that swept across the main ridge of the Dandenongs in near-40-degree heat on Tuesday, is being treated as possible arson and may become a murder probe.
The bodies of the victims were found in the wreckage of the Seabreeze Avenue home of the young couple, leading police to believe that the neighbor, a woman teacher aged about 50, might have been trying to reach a cellar.
There were further concerns that a fourth person may have died but no details were available last night.
Working in wet and misty conditions far different from the hot winds that fanned the fires 24 hours earlier, a line search of police, state emergency services and fire brigade staff combed the adjoining properties yesterday. Piles of twisted galvanised iron and bricks were all that remained of the houses. Detectives were joined by a forensic scientist and two chemists.
In the lower sections of the Mount Dandenong State Park between Ferntree Gully and The Basin, police, under the direction of the arson squad, searched burnt-out scrub to ascertain where and how the fire started.
The head of the arson squad, Detective Senior Sergeant Adrian Edwards, said police suspected that the fire had been deliberately lit.
As rain fell, the Country Fire Authority and the Department of Natural Resources and Environment sent their firefighters home, leaving householders to count the cost.
The Insurance Council of Australia estimated that the payout for 40 lost homes and dozens of damaged properties would be more than $10million. The State Government said hundreds might claim relief ranging from $700 to $5600.
Before dawn, residents who had spent the night in evacuation centres began returning home. Most were lucky, their homes still standing and their properties little the worse for wear. Mr Ray Krumins, who had fled his house in Highview Avenue, Ferny Creek, at midday on Tuesday, was ecstatic.
Others, such as Mr Ben Wallis, found everything gone - house, furniture, clothes and photographs. ``It's too much. It's unbelievable,'' he said.
The Minister for Community Services, Dr Denis Napthine, who toured burnt areas yesterday, said families who had lost homes and belongings or incurred considerable costs defending their homes might be eligible for a $700 non-means-tested grant. Others might be eligible for means-tested help of up to $5600.
The federal Minister for Social Security, Senator Jocelyn Newman, promised that criteria for the payment of benefits would be relaxed to cut delays for hardship cases. Overnight, 300 of the original complement of 800 firefighters in the Dandenongs remained to douse burning embers, and yesterday afternoon almost 20 millimetres of rain completed the job. By 3pm yesterday, the temperature had fallen to 17 degrees, down from Tuesday's high of 39.7.
A new bushfire flared near Mansfield early yesterday but by mid-afternoon it was brought under control. The CFA said the fire, at Monkey Gully Road, six kilometres south of the town, destroyed 100 hectares of bush.
Another fire near Lake Eildon was also brought under control after destroying about 725 hectares of state forest. The fire apparently started in a pine plantation.
The state's firefighters have earned universal praise for their work, and yesterday the Australia Day Committee invited them to march through the city in the Australia Day parade on Sunday. The CFA said it was concerned that temperatures would again climb and that the fire danger would return.
