The government ordered an inquiry into Saturday's crisis _ one of Australia's worst natural disasters. There were fears that hot, dry winds would blow off the desolate Outback and whip up new fires in Canberra and repeat the havoc on Monday.
``We are still facing some very high to extreme fire dangers,'' said Peter Lucas-Smith, chief fire controller for the Australian Capital Territory.
He said fires were under control, but were burning northwest and south of the city. Some areas that had been scorched black and devastated on Saturday were still burning _ just miles from the national Parliament building along with other government buildings and foreign embassies.
As pall of gray smoke haze hung over the city of 320,000 and bulldozers gouged a series of wide firebreaks along its outskirts.
Weather forecasters warned of dangerous wind gusts and maximum temperature of 95.
Police ordered residents in the northeastern suburb of Dunlop to prepare for possible evacuation, but stressed there was no reason yet for them to leave their houses with the fire front 9 miles away.
On Saturday, thousands fled their homes and hospitals treated about 250 people for burns and smoke inhalation. Many were injured when they tried to fight fires with buckets and garden hoses to save their houses.
After sifting through the charred remains of their homes, residents on Monday started looking for somebody to blame for the disaster.
Some reported that no fire crews came to their burning streets on Saturday, and emergency services admitted they had been overwhelmed by the ferocity and magnitude of the flames.
``We saw a few fire trucks coming down the street. But I think they must have thought 'that one's a lost cause' and carried on to another house,'' said Phil Bates, a carpenter who lives in the suburb of Duffy.
Phil Koperberg, chief of the rural fire service in neighboring New South Wales state, whose crews helped out on Saturday, said firefighters did all they could in appalling conditions.
``In some of the areas I have seen ... it wasn't just fire, it was fire accompanied by cyclonic conditions where trees were ripped out of the ground, huge trees were twisted around and thrown, burning, onto houses and there is no emergency service in the world that could deal with that,'' he said.
John Stanhope, Chief Minister of the Australian Capital Territory, sought to ease tensions on Monday by announcing a full inquiry.
``I understand that people are frustrated, and that they are angry and that they are looking to explain or to understand what happened,'' he told Nine Network television. ``They are questions that need to be answered, and there perhaps are some bitter lessons there for us to learn.''
Prime Minister John Howard appealed to the residents not to ``point fingers.''
``I think it's also important when something like this happens that we don't _ within 48 hours _ lapse, as a nation or as a community, into an orgy of blame,'' he told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio.
Electricity, lost to large parts of Canberra at the height of the emergency, had been restored to all but 5 percent of the city.
However, water supplies were limited. Residents were asked not to shower or wash clothes.
Police said a 61-year-old man died of smoke inhalation while trying to save his house, and a 73-year-old man also died trying to beat back flames. An 83-year-old woman and a 37-year-old woman died in their homes.
The damage bill was expected to run into hundreds of millions of dollars as the fires razed homes, schools, medical centers and thousands of acres of pine forests, said Stanhope.
A city of 320,000, Canberra is surrounded by drought-hit farmland and tinder dry forests.
Australia is in the grip of a yearlong drought that has left much of the countryside parched and vulnerable to fire. Once fires start, they roar through dry undergrowth and into oil-filled eucalyptus trees, creating infernos that are all but impossible to put out.
