A top Australian firefighter on Monday defended the warnings given to residents when wildfires killed 173 people earlier this year, as public hearings into the disaster opened in Melbourne.
Entire towns and more than 2,000 homes were razed in early February as record high temperatures, strong winds and drought-parched countryside combined to create the worst fire disaster in Australia's history.
A judicial commission into the fires held a minute's silence for the victims Monday before the hearings opened.
Officials working for the commission last month criticised warning systems in Victoria state, saying they were insufficient and gave residents no hope of anticipating the impending catastrophe.
But Country Fire Authority (CFA) chief officer Russell Rees told the commission that the public was warned conditions were potentially the worst since the "Ash Wednesday" bushfires of 1983, which killed 75 people.
"They indicated that February 7 had the potential to be worse in every aspect," Rees said.
He also defended the timeliness of the warnings, saying his officers did the best with the information they had.
"The official warnings clearly were very, very close to the actual events," Rees said.
"In other words, the time frames are very, very tight in the getting of information and the issuing of warnings."
Rees said the CFA had an index measuring fire conditions from 1 to 100, with anything above 50 considered extreme. He said the index was "off the scale" with a reading above 300 on February 7, when most fatalities occurred.
The commission will examine how the blazes raced out of control so quickly and why the death toll was so high.
It will also look at whether Australia should adopt laws allowing authorities to order compulsory evacuations similar to those in most other fire-prone countries, instead of giving residents the option to stay and defend their properties.
The commission, headed by former Supreme Court judge Bernard Teague, is due to present interim findings by August.
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