Anger and frustration began to boil over in the bushfire-ravaged Kinglake district yesterday as residents demanded they be allowed to return to their homes.
On day four of the Victorian bushfires disaster, evacuees who sought sanctuary in Whittlesea said they were denied the opportunity to return home for the first time since Saturday's inferno erupted.
Authorities said they had little choice but to continue to refuse them entry beyond impenetrable police roadblocks because of the ongoing dangers of fire threats and falling trees and power lines.
But it only served to fuel the ire of restless residents desperate to get back up the mountain to see if their homes or anything else salvageable had survived the 120,000ha fire dubbed the Kinglake complex.
A former Kinglake teacher who now runs a bakery in nearby Kinglake West, Kylie McErlain, said she was angry at being promised, then denied, the chance to return home frustration that only compounded her unimaginable grief, after she lost 15 friends from the tight-knit community.
''I've lost 15 of my mates, so I'm devastated,'' Ms McErlain said.
''Every hour you find out about someone else who's died.
''Because I was a teacher, I've lost a lot of kids I loved. I'm just absolutely in another world.
''If I got told one of them had died, I'd be devastated. Because there's so many you go numb, you don't know how to grieve, it's just so many to take in.''
Authorities had established by 6pm yesterday a rudimentary wristband system of registration for residents wanting to return home, but even then it proved to be difficult.
Ms McErlain, a lifelong Kinglake area resident, said she was trying to cart a truckload of generators up to her bakery so she could re-establish power and begin to help those residents who stayed to defend the town.
''We need to feed the people up there,'' she said.
''It's just a shemozzle,''
Paul Ryan, whose brother, John, stayed on alone in Kinglake to save his house, said he was denied the chance to help because he did not live in Kinglake.
''John managed to fight to save his house but he's been stranded up there on his own since Saturday and they won't let me through,'' he said.
''He needs a hand.
''I think he's right for food and stuff but four days he's on his own, he fought the fire on his own. They won't let me up.
''John doesn't want to come down. He's worried that if he comes down they won't let him back up.''
Country Fire Authority volunteer firefighter Scott McHugh, who was coordinating the first emergency relief convoys up to Kinglake, said he could understand residents' frustrations but safety was paramount.
''We've had trees fall down on our firemen but ... they're trained. We really have massive concerns about our residents and the broader community and that's what we have to look at the big, broader picture,'' he said. AAP
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