Sydney  - Residents of Marysville, Australia, where one in five residents are thought to have died in last weekend's forest fires, were bused back Saturday for a brief look at what's left of their once picturesque township.

They won't be allowed off the buses because forensic teams are still at work locating and identifying the 100 bodies thought to be in the burned-out cars and flattened buildings.

The official death toll from the February 7 inferno in the wooded hills north of Melbourne stands at 181, but the body count was expected to exceed 200. More than 1,830 houses were razed in Australia's worst-ever forest fires and more than 7,000 people made homeless.

"It will be very very difficult, I would imagine, to go back into your own town and see the damage that's occurred there," Victoria state government spokesman Stuart Ord said. "I guess it's preparation for these people for when they're eventually allowed back full time into the town and start to rebuild their community."

Most of the bushfire victims have been insistent they would rebuild despite the anguish of knowing some of the fires were deliberately lit and that locals were likely to be among the arsonists.

A 39-year-old man whose identity has been suppressed was charged Friday with deliberately lighting one of the fires. For his own safety, he was being held in Melbourne pending a court appearance later this week.

Half of the forest fires are believed to have been deliberately lit with the other half caused by a combination of lightning strikes and carelessness. Fires occur every Southern Hemisphere summer in the national parks that make up one-third of Victoria.

Fire has blackened 450,000 hectares of the state, and fire chief Russell Rees said it would be weeks before all 19 fires were put out. He said that among the more than 3,000 volunteer firefighters tackling the blazes were those who felt a personal responsibility for the loss of life and property.

"Some of them feel they failed here, and we've got to say they did everything possible," he said. "We're not going to give up, and it's really important that we keep going."

Lucy O'Meara, who survived when the wall of flames hit Marysville, said one moment she was having breakfast and the next running for her life.

"This sort of stuff should only be seen in movies," she told the national broadcaster ABC. "You watch those sort of things and you think, 'Oh! My god!' but we actually firsthand witnessed it." (dpa)