Hamish Payne was oblivious to the inferno racing towards him as he sat in his car outside his Tathra home on Sunday afternoon. He had arrived home on a flight from Sydney, and from the air the blaze had looked nothing more than a spot fire. There was no hint of the speed at which it was ripping through bushland towards the sleepy seaside town.
Payne’s power and internet were out. The phone was dead. As he sat in his car hoping for a radio update, the roar of the helicopters came closer and closer. The smoke thickened and it dawned on Payne that something had gone terribly wrong.
“Suddenly, in the space of about 15 minutes, it just started getting really serious,” he told Guardian Australia. “We started thinking about what we were going to grab, then there was just a vehicle in the street that said ‘Get out now’. So we had about two minutes. I grabbed the dog, some photos, and we got out.”
In an instant, an inferno was upon them. The gardens in neighbouring homes burst into flames as the floating embers found their way into dried-out shrubbery. Through his neighbours’ windows, he could see the rapidly approaching fire tearing through the bush behind his home.
“If we left it a couple more minutes I don’t think we would have got out,” he said. “You know you see those photos when everything is just bright orange and smoky? Dead set I could see about 10 metres ahead of me in the car. I had the hazard lights on, you couldn’t see a thing.”
Payne and his wife have lived in Tathra for 18 years. They left not knowing whether their house would make it through the afternoon and spent the night at Bega showgrounds along with hundreds of other Tathra residents.
It wasn’t until Monday morning that he learned his house was standing, but badly damaged.
“There’s a mate of mine who’s in the town somehow, and he’s actually just texted me a photo of the house,” he said. “She’s a bit singed, she’s a bit black on the edges, but she’s still standing.”
On Monday afternoon the Rural Fire Service released its first grim assessment of the state of the town: 69 houses had been destroyed, another 39 damaged and 30 caravans or cabins lost. About 90% of the fireground had been assessed, and residents would be allowed back to their houses where it was safe, the RFS said.
Malcolm Turnbull was shocked at the destruction when he visited Tathra on Monday with the NSW premier, Gladys Berejiklian.
“Thank heaven there have been no lives lost,” he told reporters during a visit to the Bega evacuation centre. “That’s a great tribute to the community, to the firefighters, to all of that preparation and resilience.”
Shocking to see the amount of damage caused across Tathra. I want everyone to know that we’ll do everything we can to make this easier for them. @NSWRFS #bushfires #nsw #nswrfs pic.twitter.com/f1pgsbgofZ
— Gladys Berejiklian (@GladysB) March 19, 2018
The mood among the Tathra residents gathered at Bega was surprisingly upbeat despite the devastation, Payne said. About 70 houses and other buildings are thought to have been destroyed in the fire.
Payne, the store manager at the local Woolworths, helped organise food, drink, sanitary items, phone chargers and blankets, aided by Ben Sealey, Woolworths’ group manager for the NSW south coast.
Narelle Griffin, the secretary of the Bega showgrounds, said the fire had moved through so quickly it caught most people unaware. Many were still unsure whether their houses were standing.
“Look they’re amazing, the people are amazing. It’s all I can say, if I’d lost my home, and I’ve spoken to people who have … they’re just so resilient,” she said.
“It’s been so quick and such a shock. I think they’d all like to get back into their homes and into Tathra to see first hand.”
On Monday afternoon NSW police urged the public to stay away from fire-affected areas while emergency services worked to make them safe. Teams from the Rural Fire Service and police were still assessing the extent of the damage.
The owners of the Tathra Beach Motor Village were forced to evacuate as the fire bore down on the town. They told Guardian Australia they fled north, out of the town, but have heard conflicting reports on the extent of the damage.
“We have no real idea of what damage has been done as there are a lot of different sources trying to tell us different things, which makes it hard on us. Some sources are saying we’ve lost half the park and others suggesting there’s much less damage,” the owners said in a statement.
“The only thing we really need to get out to people is we ask that customers with vans on site do not enter the park until they have first been contacted by us allowing them to do so.
“We understand it is a devastating situation and they will want to know what’s going on but we want to make sure our guests are safe first and we’ve had a chance to assess the situation before contacting van owners notifying them of the end result.”
On Monday firefighters were still battling to control the 1,000-hectare fire. It started on Saturday and moved rapidly towards Tathra, fanned by very strong winds and high temperatures.
The fire tore through several kilometres of bushland and crossed a river before it reached the seaside town. No serious injuries or deaths have been reported, and no one has been reported missing.
Payne said it could have been a lot worse. “The important thing is that at this stage, from what people are telling us, that they believe no one has been seriously injured or hurt,” he said. “At the end of the day it’s just stuff. We just pick up and go again.”
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