Sydney - Survivors returned Saturday for a glimpse of once-picturesque Marysville, the mountain hamlet north of Melbourne hardest hit by Australia's worst forest fires.

One in five of its residents is thought to have died when a blaze believed deliberately lit rushed the town February 7 and gutted all but a dozen buildings.

Marysville, once home to 500 people, is a crime scene, so the grim tourists weren't allowed off their buses. A week after the inferno, forensic teams in white overalls were still busy locating and identifying the 100 or so residents who didn't escape the flames.

"There's no more Marysville. I can't describe it. Everything is on the ground," distraught cafe owner Ashraf Doos told reporters at the end of the bus trip. "My life was there. I lost my life."

But like others, Doos pledged to help rebuild the town.

The official death toll from the nation's worst natural disaster stood at 181, but the body count was expected to exceed 200. More than 1,830 houses were razed, and more than 7,000 people made homeless.

Simon Hudson was as ashen as his former boutique hotel in Marysville as he shared his thoughts after the gruesome tour.

"The fire must have been so hot because everything is just ash," he told reporters. "Everyone's sitting there quietly, looking for their neighbour's house, their house, especially the houses of the people who died, wondering what happened to them in the last minutes."

There is particular anguish in the knowledge that police believe the Marysville fire was started by an arsonist in an abandoned saw mill and that a local might have been the one who lit the flame.

More than 100 detectives have fanned out across the blackened hills. Their first breakthrough was Friday when a man whose identity has been suppressed was charged with deliberately lighting a fire that cost 21 lives in the town of Churchill. For his own safety, he was being held in Melbourne pending a court appearance later this week.

Half of the forest fires were believed to be 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."

Help in fighting the fires has arrived from New Zealand. Next week, teams are to fly in from the United States and Canada. Indonesia is sending a forensics team to help identify victims.

Saturday was Joanne Jordan and Greg Holloway's first Valentine's Day as a married couple. They lost their home and their possessions but are thanking their lucky stars for getting out in time.

"Every day's Valentine's Day when it's six days since you almost died," Jordan told the Daily Telegraph. "Every morning, we just get up and kiss." (dpa)