When mother-of-three Donna Benstead saw the smoke surrounding her family home in the town of Port Macquarie in eastern Australia yesterday morning, she realised that it was time to flee.

The night before, as bush fires approached the town, she and her husband packed up the family's most precious possessions, including birth certificates. When they woke yesterday, the weather proved to be as bad as predicted - hot, windy, dry conditions that were fanning a series of out-of-control fires in the region around the town, which is about 400km north of Sydney.