The fires were so massive they were visible from space. NASA released satellite photographs showing a white cloud of smoke across southeastern Australia.
Police said they believed some of the fires were set deliberately and predicted it would take days to get all the blazes under control.
The threat eased somewhat early today as temperatures fell sharply, winds slowed, and rain began falling in some areas.
John Brumby, the premier of the state of Victoria, said he has accepted an offer from Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to send troops to join thousands of volunteers battling the fires.
Thousands of firefighters struggled through the night to make headway against the largest of about a dozen big fires in Victoria that earlier in the day ripped unchecked across at least 115 square miles of forests, farmland, and towns. The single worst fire was about 60 miles north of Melbourne.
"The whole township is pretty much on fire," Peter Mitchell, a resident of Kinglake, where at least six people died, told Australian Broadcasting Corp. "There was no time to do anything. . . . It came through in minutes."
Temperatures eased late yesterday as a cool front moved through the hardest-hit regions north and east of Melbourne, but along with it came wind changes that pushed the fires in new and unpredictable directions.
In the Gippsland town of Taralgon, resident Lindy McPhee watched in fear as a fire front edged closer to the town until rain began falling late yesterday. "It's raining black soot," McPhee told Sky News television.
Rudd said he would visit Victoria today to see the damage, and that money would be made available to people who had lost homes.
I'm absolutely horrified," Rudd told ABC radio. "This is an appalling loss of life, an appalling loss of property. This is a terrible and devastating tragedy."
Fires were also burning north of Sydney in New South Wales state, and in South Australia. No properties were immediately being threatened.
