dr nguyen thi ngoc phuong in vietnam. here in australia, the heat can be unbearable.ate of victoria experienced what at the time were the worst bushfires the country had ever seen. nicki lund is one of the firefighters who drove towards the flames. helplessness. .. ..not being up to do anything. it's been called australia's worst ever natural disaster, fires that swept through victoria's bushland communities so fast and with such fury, warnings couldn't always keep pace with the blaze. thousands had to flee in desperation, abandoning homes to be engulfed by flames. 173 other people never made it, the death toll from this australian tragedy. the fires started from a failed conductor on a murrindindi fire pole. the fires were bad because we'd been in drought for so long. on black saturday, the temperatures were 47 degrees and quite windy. we were all on high alert, obviously, and all on standby. so i was actually at home, and my captain called me at about 2:30pm in the afternoon and asked me to come down to the station. when we were travelling along the buxton marysvill