Updated
While firefighters continue efforts to keep dozens of blazes under control around the state, residents have begun to return to the scenes of devastation where their homes once stood.
One of those people was Faith Gordon, who lost her home in the Cobraball blaze near Yeppoon in central Queensland."It's well and truly just gone. We knew it would be a total loss when it hit," she said.
She said she was told to leave her home in the early hours of Sunday morning, and didn't have time to take any belongings with her.
"We literally have the clothes on our backs and that's it, I
couldn't grab anything else before I left. It was really scary," she
said.
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She said when she returned to the property on Sunday morning, her cat was sitting on the doorstep of the burning house.
"She was literally sitting in front of the front door of the house while it was on fire, and the garden was on fire, so she was obviously just waiting for us to come back and get her."
Fears remain as conditions continue to fluctuate
As the fire at Cobraball flared again on Sunday morning, fellow resident Pauline Allen spoke briefly to the ABC as she fled the scene."Words don't describe what's happened — I got through, half of my place survived yesterday," she said.
Shaking and near tears, Ms Allen said while her home was partially intact, the fire has fanned again, and she could lose her house on Sunday.
"I don't know if it's going to be there when I go back again, because we are on fire down there again. I lost nearly everything," she said.
Central Queensland resident Cathy Boys has lost cattle, but is unsure of how many.
She stayed to defend her home on Lake Mary Road until her husband, who is a rural fire officer, told her to leave immediately.
She said the fire really intensified around midnight.
"It just kicked off, the wind played havoc, chopping and changing going every different direction."
Ms Boys said it was a "pretty traumatic" experience.
"It's very scary when your house is under threat and you know that people have actually lost their houses.
"There was one chap that was unaccounted for, we still haven't heard about him."She said rural firefighters were defending homes while their own properties are actually under threat.
"Their houses are under threat, they don't know what they are going home to," Ms Boys said.
"The boys are all surviving on two-and-a-half to three hours' sleep, they've done like 20-hour days."
She said some in the community had lost everything, while others had been very lucky.
"We've also heard of a couple of really remarkable stories where houses that we thought were lost have actually survived, so it is hit and miss," Ms Boys said.
'It came so fast'
A Sunshine Coast man who "lost everything" in the Cooroibah blaze said the fire threat came quickly and without warning.
Brian Williams, 61, says his shed and several cars on his block on Lake Cooroibah Road were destroyed in the fire on Friday.
"It came so fast. There was no warning. There were no police or fire engines, there was no nothing. That is how fast it was," Mr Williams said.
The electrician was heading to a job at Mooloolaba around lunchtime when he realised his home was under threat.
His 18-year-old son, Beau, was studying at home for year 12 exams when he called his father.
"He said 'hey dad, the fire is right on us'," Mr Williams said.
Mr Williams told his son to wet around as much of the property as he could.
"He couldn't get the fire pump going, it was all panic," he said."He said, 'listen, I have to go', and as he is going trees were exploding around him and embers were flying over and kangaroos were running alongside him."
Mr Williams was driving back to defend the property when he found his son at the lake.
"He appeared out of this black smoke, exhausted and consumed with smoke, but he survived."He left his son in the car while he made a final attempt to make it back to save his belongings, but the smoke was too intense.
"I was getting consumed like you can't breathe. My eyes were watering, I couldn't see it was so dark, it was like running into the dark so I said, 'No, what am I doing? This is a stupid idea'.
"So I ran back and joined him in the vehicle, which was a good thing because we just got out of there and the fire whipped through."
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