When she saw the front door on fire she hurled wet blankets over her son Jakob, 10, and screamed at him to run towards the road.

"His shoes had melted in the heat so he wore the next-door neighbour's shoes, which were high-heeled boots."

Tears welled in her eyes and her hands shook. "He was so brave. He did everything that was screamed at him to do. We called him the high-heel hero."

The three crouched next to a wombat hill in the backyard, shrieking at passing cars until one stopped. There was no time to save the puppy, Hamish. Aside from what they were wearing, they lost everything. "I have no phone, no money, nothing," Ms Drenan said.

In Kinglake and its surrounds - a forest and hobby farm district near national park north-east of Melbourne - the weekend death toll had reached 29 last night.

Ms Drenan, Jakob and her friend Heather Perring sat huddled, shell-shocked, on the grass outside the Country Fire Authority shed. There was nowhere to go until the buses came to evacuate them to Whittlesea.

Ms Perring was grabbing a bag of clothes and preparing to evacuate at 6pm on Saturday when she realised the flames had invaded her home. "There was just no warning, no nothing. It just happened like there was going to be no tomorrow."

With a motley crew of humans, dogs, goats and ducks she sheltered in the CFA shed as the fiery breath of hell scorched town.

The flames came within metres of the shed, while exploding petrol pumps and gas bottles produced a nightmarish soundtrack. "We were locked in that shed with the burn victims being brought in, just praying," Ms Perring said, squeezing her shell-shocked daughter, Phoebe.

"I just felt we were all going to die in that shed."

Of course many did die.

Ms Perring said a friend's father had also sought refuge in the shed. His son and two grandchildren had died.

Acting Sergeant Scott Melville, from the Seymour traffic management unit, had the hideous job of dragging bodies out of charred homes. "I think [the body count] will be up into the 100s," he said. "It's like a friggin' war zone up here."

The Kinglake CFA resembled a refugee camp. People staggered around, wrapped in blankets, tears streaming from smoke-reddened eyes, clutching pets and children to their chests, their voices hoarse.

Nicole Berry was still wearing the purple bikini she was saved in. "I don't own any underwear," she laughed.

At seven months pregnant, she had nagged her husband to build a fire bunker behind the water tank, worried that sprinklers would not do enough to protect their timber home.

Her husband, Andrew Berry, recalled saying to her: "Stop nagging, I'll build the bloody thing."

The bunker, dug into an earth embankment with 15-centimetre concrete walls and a $1000 fireproof door, saved their lives and that of their son, Raphael, 14 months. "It was like a firestorm, it was like a raging inferno. It's a cliche, but that is what it was like," Ms Berry said.

When flames engulfed their home they wrapped themselves in wet towels and sprinted to the bunker. "We couldn't shut the door of the bunker, it was that buckled and warped," Mr Berry said. "The embers were coming through the gap, it was like the fire was coming to get us."

Another Kinglake survivor, Jason Webb, said it was as if the fire was hunting the residents. His family were among scores of bandaged and burnt Kinglake residents at the Whittlesea Community Activity Centre yesterday.

Many arrived hoping to find loved ones but left devastated and weeping as news spread of those who had not managed to escape the inferno.