Well hi all, I am actually close to one of the hot spots here. I am south of the bunyip state park. I am staying in gembrook. Gembrook's fire status was down graded from urgent to alert status. The best place for pics is definately on the cfa's website.
www.cfa.vic.gov.au
there is also the dse site
www.dse.vic.gov.au
The sites give you the location of the fire and it's size and severity and whether or not they are under control.
The worst hit area's were whittlesea and kinglake. Whittlesea has had the highest fatality rate. Just for a comparison:
Ash wednesday (1983) 75 fatalities.
Ash wednesday burned though a much larger area and actually crept north into NSW.
This fire has had 175 fatalities and is still climbing as they have only just gotten into some area's to extract bodies etc.
There have been donations coming in to the fire relief fund and it up to $15mil so far. Which for the obvious reasons will be used for rebuilding alot of these burnt out communities.
I will keep you all updated as to any new developments. For the most part those 2 sites I have put up are the most up to date and are the best source for information. Also
www.ninemsn.com.au has news feeds running in regards to the destruction and devastation. It has been likened to a war zone and even a halucaust.