Terry Ross, a resident of Marysville, Australia, tells how he saved his home from fire as he waits at Buxton, north of Melbourne, Australia, for his wife, who has gone to tour their devastated town Saturday.

Buxton, Australia ? The school, the post office, the pub, the grocery store, the bakery, the gas station. All gone. So are as many as one in five of Marysville’s 500 residents — killed when one of Australia’s deadly wildfires raced through the town a week ago.

About 200 of the town’s survivors — those who could bear to look — returned Saturday on a bus tour organized by the authorities to see their community for the first time since fleeing for their lives.

“It’s just ash. Ash and tin,” said Simon Hudson, 42, who ran a bed and breakfast in Marysville.

Hudson said he felt sick to his stomach as he toured the town, which has been sealed off for almost a week. Authorities have been collecting bodies and sifting through the ruins for clues to the arson they suspect may be the cause of the blaze.

“We lost our friends, we lost our community, everything,” Hudson said.

Marysville, the “Mystic Village” of tourist brochures, a haven for trekkers in the spring and a coffee stop on the way to Victoria state’s ski fields during the winter, is now a crime scene.

Harley Ronalds lost her 72-year-old grandfather in the fire. She gave a wry smile as she recalled how stubborn he was — he would not leave the house until the last minute, letting his wife leave but preferring to fight the fire as long as he could. His body was found next to his car, the burned carcass of his dog beside him.

“The only time I really fell apart was when I saw Grandpa’s house,” Ronalds, 17, said. “I screamed and cried and couldn’t look at the house and his car sitting there. That destroyed me. I don’t know how to take it.”

One dozen buildings are left standing in Marysville, out of 250. Towering oak trees still line the main street, but are bare of leaves that were seared off as the flames swept through.

Some 400 blazes raged across Victoria on Feb. 7 as record temperatures and blasting winds sent firestorms racing at up to 60 mph through forests, farms and towns. They burned all before them — more than 1,500 square miles of land, more than 1,800 homes — and claimed 181 lives and counting. Some 7,500 people are homeless.

About 200 people took the solemn tour Saturday, leaving from Buxton, a fire-scarred town about seven miles north of Marysville.

They have not been allowed to return home since the fire because police are treating the entire town as a crime scene. They were not allowed off the buses, and chaplains and counselors were on board to help them cope with what they were seeing.

Police have charged one suspect with arson in connection to the statewide fires, and put him in protective custody, hiding his identity to protect him from possible reprisals. The fire he is alleged to have started is not the one that destroyed Marysville, but police suspect an arsonist there too.

The official Marysville death toll stands at eight people — but officials stopped putting out individual town death tolls several days ago. Authorities say the actual number killed in Marysville may be closer to 100.

Residents spoke fondly of the river that ran through town, the majestic oaks, the quaint tourist shops, Keppel’s Hotel where they met for beers, Fragas Cafe where they chatted over coffee.

“It’s like a big family there,” said Terry Ross, 55, a third-generation Marysville resident. “Everyone knows each other. All the places I knew as I grew up there were burned to the ground.”