Australia ? A judge launched an inquiry into the deadly Australian wildfires on Tuesday as authorities announced they would find ways to make the region safer before the next season of inevitable blazes.

Police raised the death toll to 200 from the Feb. 7 fires that raged across southern Victoria state, saying it would climb further as more bodies were recovered from the devastation. A firefighter, meanwhile, was crushed by a falling branch — the first death in the fire zone since the disaster.

Former Victoria state Supreme Court Justice Bernard Teague outlined his first steps in what officials say will be one of the largest and most complex disaster investigations ever seen in Australia. The inquiry will determine the cause of the inferno and how to avoid a repeat of its tragic results.