CANBERRA Street after street in Australia's capital city was laid waste by a ferocious blaze that destroyed lives and homes and left nothing but charred devastation in its wake.

Branding it the worst fire disaster to hit the city, survivors and firefighters spoke in awe Sunday of the sheer speed and size of the inferno as three blazes merged to form one massive firestorm.

The 35-kilometre (22-mile) firefront killed three people, injured 150 and razed almost 400 homes Saturday, sending residents fleeing for safety and totally overwhelming firefighters.

Australians had been bracing for a horror bushfire season as the worst drought in a century created tinder-dry conditions but the city streets of the nation's capital were unexpected victims.

"The most terrifying thing was the sound of explosions. It sounded like a war zone," said volunteer firefighter Simon Corbell, who is also health minister of the Australian Capital Territory.

The worst

Another seasoned firefighter, Marty Bennett, a ranger with the forests department, described the wall of fire that destroyed his house and work depot as the worst he had ever seen.

"It was as far as you could see. We had to high-tail it out of there and it hit the house like nobody's business," Bennett, 31, said.

"Our depot site looks like a country town of twisted metal, it's all collapsed and vehicles are burned. There's nothing there at all."

Bennett, left with just two bags of clothes and his car, said he was surviving on adrenalin but expected to "crash" soon.

He spent Saturday night saving the houses of seven families nearby.

"If I had lost my house at least I could save someone else's," he said, his face still burning from the searing heat.

Several firefighters lost their own homes as they battled to save those of others, and most had been fighting the blaze for the past four days before a freak wind turned it on their own city.

But the community spirit was lost on one man, accused by police of looting at the height of the evacuations.

Charred remains

Winds continued to gust through Canberra Sunday as residents returned to the charred remains of what once were their family homes and streets now barely recognisable.

Their empty avenues were strewn with electrical cables and light poles stretched, bedraggled, across scorched gardens while charred remains of wild birds were scattered among the hundreds of burnt-out cars that littered the once picturesque streets.

In Eucumbene Street, Duffy, the full force of the firestorm was evident -- in one stretch of 21 homes, just two were left standing.

Single mother Tracey Snape complained there was no warning the fire was so close and burst into tears when firefighters rushed into her house to evacuate her family.

"By the time we were half way down the street, the house was gone," said Snape, 33, a mother of four.

Dressed in clothes she borrowed from her teenage son Sunday, Snape returned to the house she now refuses to call her home "because there's nothing left" and spoke of her fear at walking down a main road full of abandoned and burned cars.

"It feels like the end. You walk through the smoke into nothing."

Amazing luck

Among the horror there were stories of amazing luck. One house was under ember attack but was saved when an adjacent water tank exploded, dousing the flames.

Corbell said the sound of explosions was terrifying and the sky switched between pitch black and a red glow.

He gave up the fight to save his house using the garden hose, electing to join his family at an evacuation centre.

Amazingly, his house survived. AFP