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CANBERRA, (Reuters) Two weeks after ferocious bushfires wreaked havoc in the Australian capital, Canberra, a lone koala, singed but alive, was spotted clinging to the top of a gum tree in a nature reserve on the city's outskirts.

Wildlife officers, struggling to come to terms with the massive loss of wildlife in Canberra's worst ever fires, had to fell a tree to rescue the terrified female who was the only one of 20 koalas at the Tidbinbilla reserve to survive the inferno.

Nicknamed Lucky, the koala was taken to a veterinary hospital where she was treated in intensive care for burns and stress in the hope that she would recover significantly to return to the wild.

"It is very sad we lost so many. But finding one does provide a glimmer of hope," Geoff Wells, manager of the Australian Capital Territory Parks and Conservation unit, told Reuters.

"Nature has wonderful ways to help itself."

More than 90 percent of the 500 or so animals enclosed at Tidbinbilla perished in the fires that stormed southern Canberra on January 18, killing four people, destroying 530 homes, and scorching 110,000 hectares (271,000 acres) of the Tidbinbilla Nature Reserve and adjoining Namadji National Park.

At latest count, the inferno spared one koala, five rock wallabies, five potoroos or rat kangaroos, four freckled ducks, several swans and Mrs Ripper, an aggressive duck known for her hostility towards staff and visitors to the reserve.

But tens of thousands of native animals are expected to have died in the massive blazes that have also razed up to 800,000 hectares - an area five times the size of Greater London - in the nearby states of Victoria and New South Wales.

BIRDS FALLING FROM SKY

The exact number of victims will never be known and it could take years to assess the impact of the fires on a list of endangered species, ranging from possums to frogs, that are unique to the Australian continent. Bushfires regularly tear across Australia's parched landscape, but one of the worst droughts in a century created extreme conditions this summer, turning bushland into a tinderbox and bringing fires closer to residential areas.

The speed at which fires stormed through the bush, fanned by temperatures of up to 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees fahrenheit) and high winds, made it impossible for many animals to flee.

And many of those that survived the flames died from smoke inhalation, starvation, thirst and even road accidents as they frantically searched for shelter, water and food. "Birds were simply falling out of the sky as they hit the wall of flames and smoke, with smaller birds, like sparrows and finches, particularly badly affected by smoke," said Simon Tadd, an executive director with the RSPCA animal welfare group.

Livestock such as sheep and cattle also perished in the fires, adding to the woes of the nation's farmers who were already battling a brutal drought.

But in many cases it was the livestock that survived the inferno that created the greatest heartache for their owners.

Farmer Matthew Gregory had to shoot 100 sheep with serious burns to end their misery the day after fires razed his Tharwa property just south of Canberra. He lost 540 sheep in total. "Someone needs to explain how 30 years of fuel build-up in Namadji (National Park) was allowed to happen," Gregory told local reporters.

As the bushfires start to subside, stories of survival are emerging from the ashes as animals that escaped the onslaught venture out of the blackened bush, seeking food and water.

Tadd said a few hundred young kangaroos, possums, rabbits and birds had been found alive but injured in the past week.

Some animals were found curled up in tree trunks to escape the fires while others survived by sheltering among rocks.

"I've been scratched all over my arms trying to catch injured rabbits who are just scared stupid," Tadd told Reuters.

"Some animals we can help but the larger kangaroos we can do nothing about. They're too big and have to be (put down) on the spot so we've two teams of rangers out in parkland to euthanise kangaroos and other injured wildlife. It's very sad."

Rangers at the Tidbinbilla Nature Reserve found five survivors from a group of 35 brush-tailed rock wallabies, an endangered species which the park was trying to breed as part of a national recovery team. They had sheltered among rocks.

"One of the females has a joey in her pouch so we have the nucleus to start again but it is going to take time," Wells said.

Wildlife officers were hoping for the same luck with the endangered mountain pygmy possum which lives in alpine and sub-alpine regions of New Souuth Wales and Victoria states which have been extensively burnt and remain threatened by fire.

Only about 3,000 adult mountain pygmy possums are believed to remain and ecologist Ian Mansergh from Victoria's Department of Sustainability and Environment is hoping the possums have survived the fires by sheltering among rocks.

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