The daily newspaper spoke to Marianne Perrin (link in English), who lives in Melbourne, whose annual vacation to a coastal town ended with her being evacuated with a sick relative, leaving behind her husband and father-in-law to face the fires.

"I had spoken to people who lost their homes in the fires, but only once you come into contact with the fire on a personal level do you understand the severity of this disaster," she said.

Jane Viljak, who lives near Brisbane, told Postimees after putting her children to bed at 6 p.m. one evening, she went to sleep herself but: "I woke up at 10 p.m. because it was light outside. I thought it was morning," she said. In reality, the evening sky was lit up by fires raging on both sides of the road." 

Many Estonians in Australia are worried that as the summer season is only just beginning the fires will rage well into March, the paper wrote.

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