Six towns have lost 10 or more people, including Strathewen, Marysville, Kinglake and St Andrews to Melbourne's north, and the toll may rise as the search moved continues. The royal commission, including Ron McLeod, who headed the inquiry into Canberra's 2003 bushfires, will soon visit communities.

There are fears the bushfires could have left the state's water supply weakened for a generation.

Lawyers for accused arsonist Brendan Sokaluk have said his family have been threatened.

Police say many of those feared dead in Marysville have been found alive but had failed to register with the Australian Red Cross.

Of those confirmed dead, 39 were killed in Marysville and four in nearby Narbethong. Police had feared about 100 people could have perished there on Saturday, February 7.

Alexandra Leading Senior Constable Ian Hamill said some survivors had not registered with the Red Cross.

''The town is absolutely destroyed and looks terrible, that's tragic, but the body count won't be as high as it possibly could have been,'' he said. Melbourne Water managing director Rod Skinner has warned there could be a 30 per cent reduction in water inflows for the next 30 years as regrowth in mountain ash soaks up water. The Victorian Government has taken steps to consolidate Melbourne's water supply in uncontaminated reservoirs, transferring 10 billion litres from reserves that could face contamination from ash.

Almost one-quarter of Melbourne's usual supply of drinking water will be contaminated for the next three months. Melbourne has experienced its driest start to the year on record, with only 2mm of rain so far, and the storage was 31.8 per cent yesterday.

Royal commission head, retired Supreme Court judge Bernard Teague, will begin work within weeks. He will report urgent findings before the next fire season and the final report is due next year.

Sokaluk's lawyers were trying to prevent his address from being published yesterday, fearing retribution. Sokaluk is facing one count of arson causing death relating to the Churchill fires in Gippsland.

Police have revised the death toll from those fires down from 21 to 10. Violent threats had extended to social networking websites. Sokaluk's ex-girlfriend Alexandra was caught up in the publicity. Her mother said the brief relationship was over.