More than 40 feared dead in Australia's 'worst ever' bushfires

Australia has suffered one of its most devastating days of bushfires in living memory after blazes sweeping across the south-eastern state of Victoria killed at least 14 people.

Confirmation of the deaths came as more than 3,000 firefighters and hundreds more volunteers battled overnight to contain nine savage fires and police warned that the death toll could rise to 40.

The ferocious fires, fuelled by a combination of high temperatures, hot winds and bone-dry leaf litter, were burning on more than 10 fronts and had razed at least 100 homes.

In some places the infernos were so intense that weather forecasters said they were changing the weather - creating thunderstorms through a process known as pyrocumulus, in which enormous quantities of rising ash cause convection.

A woman called Denise, who phoned Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) radio, said her mother-in-law's house in Kinglake had been overcome by fire in just 15 minutes.