They're planning for about 300 dead. The magistrates, the coroners, the pathologists, the bureaucrats. Three hundred men and women and children. Hundreds and thousands more dogs and cats, cows and sheep, wombats, parrots, roos, rats, rabbits, snakes and horses. No ark from a firestorm.
Nobody here has been left untouched. That little boy performing conjuring tricks at a wedding in my family last January, he was so proud of where he lived: Kinglake. I call my cousin, heart in mouth. Mixed news: he and his mum Nicky are alive, but their old house burned to the ground. Now they're under ember attack in Healesville. Family friend Peter died in St Andrews defending his home. Her husband and in-laws are terribly distressed.
For me, the suffering and death are still at one remove. My housemate Myrna's brother and sister in law still have their house in Eaglehawk, but neighbours have lost theirs.
I've been working with the Metropolitan Fire Brigade on its recruitment, training and culture. Suddenly none of it seems as important as the human services firefighters deliver.
It is dirty and dangerous work. Jamie, my son-in-law, has been a volunteer firefighter for 14 years, working for no reward but service, and with nominal insurance cover, in the filthiest and most dangerous of conditions.
But the current fires beat anything that has desperately frightened me for him before. This time I've been afraid for them all. The more you know, the more reason to fear. Firefighters take safety seriously, but God sent a blizzard this time, not a blaze.
What makes a firefighter? I've seen middle-aged women — volunteers, who wouldn't pass the meticulous physical (a 'mini Olympics', or the 'beep test') or the exams you have to pass to get into the Metropolitan Fire Brigade — shepherding flocks of flame right alongside great big male firefighters, saving lives and property.
Emotional intelligence, self-control, perseverance, courage and stubbornness: not soldiers, but citizens, ordinary women and men, professionals and volunteers, juniors and olds, without discrimination.
What can I do, I think, that first Sunday morning, other than being a nuisance at an emergency centre, or a gawker?
So I fall gratefully into something practical that I can do, fostering survivors' dogs and cats, collecting food, blankets, crates and carriers, leads and collars for those bewildered companion animals who survived but whose owners didn't, or whose family is missing or who simply can't keep them, having