Fourteen the first night, 84 the second, 130 the third.

Each time Victoria Police issues a press statement it feels like a dagger through the heart, and at 7.30pm yesterday the 28th bushfire toll update put the figure at 181.

But as the detectives, forensic experts, firefighters and soldiers searching through the blackened debris are painfully aware, each death is individual.

Each is heartbreaking, and each is incomparable.

What horror must wine distributor Robert Davey and his wife Natasha have faced as they perished with their two children Jorja, 3, and eight-month-old Alexis?

The pain of Robert's parents, Joan and Leon, is all too real.

''Her final words were 'The fire is here' ... and the phone went blank,'' Joan said.

''It's not real. We hadn't slept from Friday night until we got home on Monday. I had a sleep but when I woke up it just came back. And it comes back in waves and rips your guts.''

Alexis was starting to crawl, an entire life was still ahead.

But how do you measure their loss against the family of Bill and Faye Walker, in their 80s, who died with wheelchair-bound son Geoffrey Walker, 53?

The couple's three daughters waited at a Healesville roadblock while two of their husbands searched Narbethong for any clues of survival, returning with the worst news.

Penny and Melanie Chambers, in their early 20s, were killed trying to save their horses.

Neave Buchanan, 9, died with older brother, McKenzie, 15.

Their mother, Rebecca, lost her brother, Danny Clark, 37.

Speedboat champion Steve Lackas died in Wandong.

Mick Kane is the only death in Bendigo, but that fact is little comfort for his widow and seven siblings.

His recovery from a brain aneurism was so remarkable he was featured in the Australian Medical Journal, but the bushfire was one blow too many for the 48-year-old.

Danny Shepherd, of Ocean Grove, a coastal hamlet far from harm, died while trying to save others in Kinglake. Train drivers, builders, former television newsreaders, doctors.