Australian fire report released as bushfires burn

CANBERRA, Dec 19 (Reuters) As Australian authorities brace for a horror bushfire summer, with blazes in four states, a coroner today found emergency services were unprepared for a deadly 2003 firestorm which swept the nation's capital.

Almost four years after a bushfire hit Canberra's sprawling suburbs with cyclonic ferocity, killing four people and razing almost 500 homes, ACT Coroner Maria Doogan said authorities had failed to give proper warning of the approaching firestorm.

She also took emergency authorities to task for failing to attack fires when they were first sparked by lightning in rugged mountains west of the capital on January 8, 2003.

''Frankly, on the evidence before the inquiry, it is a miracle that no more than four people died,'' Doogan said in a letter before unveiling the inquiry to a packed court.

The bushfire hit the unprepared city with an hour's warning on January 18, sweeping over mountains to the west and blackening whole suburbs as firefighters backed by helicopter water bombers were overwhelmed. More than 430 people were injured.

At the height of the fire, the emergency services command centre caught alight and one fire station burned down.

Doogan said emergency and parks officials had failed to clear forest trails of debris which had turned the drought-stricken region into a tinderbox ahead of the fire's path.

The poor preparations had contributed to the damage in the city, known by Australians as the ''bush capital'' for its extensive parklands, she said, making 73 recommendations to ensure a similar catastrophe did not happen again.

Former chief fire control officer Peter Lucas-Smith said no additional bushfire fighting actions would have made much difference given the speed and the ferocity of the fire.

As the report was handed down, firefighters in the southern island state of Tasmania were preparing to use firebombs dropped from helicopters to burn off areas of forest fuel and slow a large blaze threatening the seaside tourist hamlet of Bicheno.'' ''If you light a lot of small fires then you don't get one large fire going and running through the bush,'' fire service spokesman Geoff Knight told ABC radio.

In Western Australia, fire crews had contained a large blaze burning in a national park, while milder weather helped firefighters contain fires in the south and central west of New South Wales.

In the southern state of Victoria, blazes were still threatening towns where 32 houses have been lost and 730,000 hectares of bushland destroyed.

Australia faces extreme fire danger this summer due to a severe drought. Bushfires, a regular feature of the summer, have killed more than 250 people over the past 40 years.

Reuters MS DB0948