Community spirit alive in small East Coast Tassie town during bushfire
Swansea residents have opened their doors and shops to bushfire evacuees after 19 homes were damaged and tourists left stranded without passports or medication.
The Swansea community has banded together another while residents remain cut-off from their Dolphin Sands home.
One of those pitching in is the volunteer run op shop, The Re-Use Shop, which is offering free items for people impacted by the devastating fire.
Manager Celia Ralston said all were welcome to the things they may need.
“In times like these, we’ve got a shop full of goods, clothing and furniture and people have lost so much,” she said.
“We’re offering that people can access that when they need it most.”
The shop runs on volunteer hours but it can be flexible with Ms Ralston able to open up in times of need, whether it’s a jumper and socks like tourist Jo Collie sought for her and her husband.
Many impacted from the evacuation are tourists like Ms Collie.
She said they were out for lunch when they were evacuated from their Airbnb.
“We are visiting our daughter who is a midwife in Tasmania,” she said.
“We were meant to be staying in Swansea for two nights.”
Ms Collie and her husband left their passports and medication in the Airbnb.
“Our biggest concern is we don’t actually know whether our rental house has been affected,” she said.
“We don’t know if our passports are still on the table where we left them yesterday morning.”
Ms Collie said like many others, she’s waiting to hear what homes have been damaged.
“We are mostly concerned for the people who live here,” she said.
‘It was a very long, very scary night’
A small coastal town is in shock after a brutal bushfire swept through homes on Thursday.
On Friday, one Dolphin Sands resident remained trapped in their home with husband and dog.
The resident, who doesn’t want to be named, said they didn’t have time to leave before the road closed.
“It was a very long, very scary night,” she said.
“The flames were really high. Everyone was awake all night.”
The Dolphin Sands area doesn’t have power, with TasNetworks confirming the outage.
“We’re asking people to be prepared to be without power for multiple days at Dolphin Sands until it’s a. safe to go there and b. it’s going to take quite some time to repair those poles,” TasNetworks’ Jason King said.
The resident said she had neighbours over, making people tea and coffee because she had a gas stove.
The resident said she knew of people who had lost homes from the fires.
“It’s been scary for everyone,” she said.
Her residence is further down the road, she said there were a lot of bushes and trees down that end.
“If the fire comes down this end, it’ll all just go ‘kapow’,” she said.
“There is a chance it might flare up again.”
With no communication with the internet down, she said she was relying on fire fighters knocking on the door to tell them information.
She said the road might open soon for residents to leave.
“Once it starts, none of us can go anywhere,” the resident said.
“We’ve packed the car ready to go.”
The plan was if the fire comes, to get into the neighbours boat.
“We had our waterproof bags ready to get into the boat and into the river last night,” she said.
Further into town, Swansea Beach Chalets open its door to those in need.
General manager Lisa Deegan Brown was able to see the bushfire go up from across the water, saying it looked even worse than the one the area had two years ago.
She said it looked “apocalyptic” Thursday night.
“From the looks of it, quite a bit of property was damaged,” Ms Deegan Brown said.
“We’re really lucky today this wind had died down because the wind was bad yesterday.
“We’ve had a lot of wind, but to have a fire on a 30 degree day, it’s just unstoppable.”
Ms Deegan Brown said it was a close knit community who helped each other.
“That’s what we do,” she said.
People who have caravans parked here unused have told people to use them for shelter, Ms Deegan Brown said.
“It’s just that community spirit,” she said.
On Friday, the Tasmania Fire Service confirmed 19 homes or shacks had been damaged by the bushfire.
Originally published as Community spirit alive in small East Coast Tassie town during bushfire
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