Complete and utter devastation.

Words simply do not describe the pain and anguish suffered by numerous families who lost properties earlier this week in the biggest bushfire crisis to hit East Gippsland in more than a century.

The worst part: More destruction looms tomorrow with the forecast of hot temperatures and high winds.

People in remote areas are being told to leave for a safer place. Metung CFA members yesterday morning urged everyone to leave and head west of Bairnsdale.

Clifton Creek, Sarsfield and Buchan bore the brunt of the fires that swept through East Gippsland overnight on Monday.

While the exact numbers are still to be confirmed, fire officials on the ground on Tuesday said 19 homes had been lost in Sarsfield and 12 structures in Clifton Creek.

The Clifton Creek Primary School has also been razed to the ground.

In Buchan and Buchan South the losses are said to be higher, although exact numbers are yet to be confirmed.

It has been reported around 100 structures have been destroyed in East Gippsland. Reports from Mallacoota yesterday suggest at least 50 houses have been lost.

One person is confirmed dead in Buchan and 17 others are still unaccounted for in East Gippsland.

In Mallacoota, 4000 people remain isolated after fires closed the Princes Highway. Australian Defence Fore personnel in aircraft and ships are supporting the people of Mallacoota and other isolated areas.

In Sarsfield, the fires bore their fury on homes along the Great Alpine Road, not far from the Nicholson Bridge.

Homes were also destroyed in Duncan Road and properties impacted in High Street.

Volunteer firefighter, Mark Sykes, was fighting the fires on Monday night with the local brigade and watched his house burn.

Neighbor, Diane Walker, said Mr Sykes was at her property when his house went up.

Mrs Walker said the local crew had been putting out spot fires when the inferno came through around midnight.

She said the intensity of the searing heat prevented the brigade from getting closer to Mr Sykes’ home.

“He just said to me my house is about to burn and there’s nothing I can do,” Mrs Walker said.

“We could feel the heat coming off the fires, it was really hot. We could see houses going up everywhere, it was just horrifying.

“I’ve lived through bad fires in this area before as a kid, but this is the worst I’ve seen,” Mrs Walker said.

A friend of the family, Brian Dilks, of Bairnsdale, said the Sykes’ had just finished renovating their home.

Mr Sykes wife and children were in the Latrobe Valley when the fires swept through.

In Duncan Road, there were multiple property losses and miraculous stories of livestock survival.

Margaret and Bruce Fraser, who live at Dirty Hollow, inspected their son’s farm and couldn’t believe his entire 10 acres had been decimated by fire except for a small patch of grass near a water trough where the four cows were waiting.

“It’s the luck of the gods,” Mr Fraser said, as he prepared to move the cows out.

In the property next door the entire paddock had been burnt out but the horse which occupied it was still alive.

DOUBLE TRAGEDY

In Deptford’s Road, Clifton Creek, 84-year-old Ulla Kruse’s house was destroyed after the fire came in behind the property, burning everything in its wake.

Mrs Kruse’s son, Aaron, a shipwright who resides in Bairnsdale, had been at the property with his mother earlier on the Monday evening between 6 and 8pm.

“I was wetting down the northern edge of the land in anticipation of ember attacks,” Mr Kruse said.

“The first thing I saw was a big column of smoke (across the paddocks) heading in an easterly direction.”

Mr Kruse said he then saw flames and brought his mother outside in order to convince her that it was time to leave.

“It was about eight o’clock when I could just see flames about a kilometre away near the school. I saw this red glow and thought that doesn’t look good. I took mum by the hand and said I think we better leave now.”

Mr Kruse said his mother was pretty calm, acknowledging the fire was getting a bit too close for comfort.

Mr Kruse left a 1000-litre water tank on a vehicle with a firefighting pump for the fire crews, but on reflection doesn’t believe it would have been adequate in quelling the inferno.

“I don’t think the equipment I had would have done anything.”

Mr Kruse said cleaning up around his mother’s property was a never ending job and he had done what he could in the lead-up to the fires.

He said his mother’s neighbor, Peter Reilly, had described the fire coming through as like a jet plane.

“It came through fast and within seconds everything was gone,” Mr Kruse said.

A Mercedes car collection and a British Leyland Albion bus Mr Kruse had bought three years ago were rendered empty shells as the fire unleashed its fury.

“Mum only grabbed her purse and a tooth brush and left with the clothes she had on.”

Mr Kruse said his mother knew the fires were coming but remained hopeful that her home would be spared.

“We were both hopeful.”

Mr Kruse and his sister, Maren, were allowed into Clifton Creek on Wednesday to inspect the damage.

“Mum wanted to come but then changed her mind,” Mr Kruse said.

“When we told her later (the house had burnt down) she went quiet and we just hugged her.”

Mrs Kruse has travelled to Melbourne with her daughter while deciding her future.

The Kruse family bought the house in 1975 and Mrs Kruse remained living at the property after separating from her husband.

For Aaron Kruse, the loss of the family home and the Clifton Creek Primary School, which he attended in 1975/76, came as a double blow, yet he remained realistic.

“It’s (the fires) not over for a long time, we’ve got to be aware of that,” he said.

Mr Kruse was at his father’s Nungurner property on New Year’s Day cleaning up in anticipation of expected worsening fires conditions in East Gippsland tomorrow.

HOUSES SURVIVE, SCHOOL GONE

Troy Nicholls lives on Deptford Road in Clifton Creek, across the road from the local primary school which was burnt to the ground.

He had intended to stay at his house, in which he’s lived for eight years, to defend it from the bushfires, but the intensity of the radiant heat became overpowering.

Mr Nicholls drove further up Deptford Road, away from the blazing fires, and waited it out near the intersection of the Great Alpine Road as the fires wreaked havoc in Clifton Creek.

His partner, Lauren and their two children, Kaiden, 4, and Ebony, 2, were already safely in Bairnsdale with family.

The horses had also been relocated to safer pastures on the previous Friday.

After the fires swept through Clifton Creek, Mr Nicholls returned to his property fearing the worst.

“I drove in at 2 o’clock (Tuesday morning), it was pretty bad, it looked like a war zone. The school was still going,” he said.

Mr Nicholls was relieved to see his house had been saved.

“I was pretty lucky, two neighbours with a water tank on the back of a truck saw the fire under the front verandah and jumped the fence to put it out.”

Those neighbours were later identified as Boff and Josh, local heroes, who were responsible for saving several other properties.

The only real damage to the Nicholls property was a burnt front fence under which a line of agapanthus grew. They too had been badly burnt.

“I was going to pull those agapanthus out anyway,” Mr Nicholls said.

IMAGE: Bushfires raged across the landscape at Clifton Creek on Monday night decimating homes and destroying the local primary school. K1564-31