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CANBERRA, Dec 14 (Reuters) in Australia marked out homes that can't be saved today as bushfires advanced on several towns and burned uncontrolled across large areas of the country's southeast.

Strong winds drove a large blaze into the Tasmanian hamlet of Cornwall and battled to save homes on the southern island state.

''They just stood in the flames with hoses and not a lot more,'' ABC radio reported.

Fire authorities placed red tape across driveways of houses in Cornwall and nearby St Marys, marking them as homes they would be unable to save as an expected late wind change fanned a large blaze ravaging surrounding bushland.

''If a property has trees right up to the back door, then it's going to put lives at risk and we have to declare those houses as undefendable,'' Tasmanian Fire Service spokesman Michael Watkins told Reuters.

The St Marys blaze engulfed 14 houses in the coastal tourist town of Scamander on Monday and has since moved to threaten three more rural communities, driven by winds gusting at 50 kilometres (31 miles) per hour.

Most of the homes, identified as at risk through a process called ''structural triage'', were farms and isolated coastal homes surrounded by thick scrubland, Watkins said.

In Victoria state, more than 4,000 Australian and New Zealand were battling 11 blazes sparked by lightning strikes that have burnt 420,000 hectares (1,621 square miles) of rugged mountain bushland and which threaten several towns.

As temperatures soared again after two days of relatively cool conditions that aided control efforts, authorities were considering calling for reinforcements from the United States.

were scrambling to save the historic Mt Buffalo Chalet in the state's northeast as strong northerly winds pushed a blaze towards the grand 96-year-old building.

The fire claimed another ski resort on Mt Buffalo on Tuesday.

Fire crews in New South Wales fought to control a fire burning in pine forests to the southwest of the Australian capital, Canberra. Smaller fires were also smouldering in South Australia state.

say Australia faces an extreme fire danger this summer after a drought that has turned many rural areas into tinder boxes. Scientists fear climate change will bring more frequent higher temperatures and less rainfall to the country.

Bushfires are a regular feature of Australia's summer. In January 2005, the deadliest bushfires in 22 years killed nine people in South Australia. Over the past 40 years, more than 250 people have been killed in bushfires in Australia.