Koolewong fire: At least 16 homes destroyed as NSW braces for more fire danger
The number of homes lost in a Central Coast fire has grown as residents recall the terror of the fast-spreading blaze, as dozens of fires continue to burn across the state.
Central Coast residents ran for their lives as an inferno converged on their homes at the weekend, returning on Sunday to scenes of utter devastation.
Locals who had evacuated Koolewong, where the devastating blaze destroyed at least 16 homes on Saturday, were reduced to tears as they came back and surveyed the damage, embraced loved ones and pondered what to do next, some having lost everything.
Janice Rattray fled the flames with dog Betty under her arm, alongside barefoot son-in-law Nick Gibbs, who was carrying his 15-month-old son.
When they returned to find their house destroyed, Ms Rattray covered her mouth with a hand while choking back tears.
“Honestly, it’s like a TV program,” she said.
“You don’t realise it’s your own home because you don’t think that’s ever going to happen.”
Mr Gibbs told The Daily Telegraph “we just literally ran”.
“There was fire from both sides and me and my son were running,” he said.
I thought, ‘this is not how we go’. I thought ‘this could be it’.”
Mr Gibbs ultimately made his way to a waterfront area near his home, in an “evil irony”.
“We were sitting in the most beautiful part of Australia, literally sitting there watching our house burn down,” he said.
His partner Elyse Guevara said she was “pretty overwhelmed” when she later saw the state of their home.
The fire that devastated their family and so many others was on Sunday night under investigation by police, who seized jerry cans that were found sitting near a railway line about 500m from several of the properties that were destroyed.
Local resident Dave Scott found the cans and, thinking they looked “suspicious”, alerted the Rural Fire Service, prompting fire investigators, detectives and forensic officers to visit the scene.
NSW Police said nothing was “being ruled in or out” in the early stages of its investigation into the fire.
“Advice”-level emergency warnings remained in place for the Koolewong fire, which was brought under control on Sunday afternoon, and blazes burning at Redhead in the Lake Macquarie area, the Goulburn River National Park in the Upper Hunter, and Bulahdelah on the mid-north coast.
NSW Rural Fire Service spokesman Greg Allan said 74 fires were burning, with 23 yet to be contained.
As flames converged on her Koolewong home of 12 years on Saturday, there was only one thing on Brooke Heyward’s mind: her pet pig.
Ms Heyward only spotted the blaze from her veranda when it was about 20 metres away from the house, which ultimately burned to the ground.
“I just rushed out to the back door and grabbed my pet pig, Pumbaa,” she told The Daily Telegraph on Sunday.
“He was freaking out, so I tried to get him through the house.
“I had to push him and pull him and get him down the stairs because I knew if I could just get him outside, he could run away. Then I got my dog out.”
Ms Heyward was separated from Pumbaa as she fled the area, with flames shooting over her car as she drove away.
After an agonising night of not knowing his fate, she returned on Sunday to find Pumbaa alive at the back of her neighbours’ home with a sprinkler.
“I just wanted to find him,” she said.
“Once I found him, I knew I could deal with the rest of it.
“My biggest concern was getting him safe, and I knew that he’d be smart enough to go wherever the fire wasn’t.”
Craig and Sarra Saxon, who built their home in 2000, said they had “lost everything” when the Koolewong fire, which has burned through more than 120 hectares, came roaring towards their street on Saturday.
They had prepared the house for the bushfire season but there was nothing they could do as the flames closed in, giving them just minutes to evacuate.
“We’ve lost everything,” Mr Saxon said. “We managed to save the pets and Sarra grabbed the jewellery and passports but, other than that, everything.”
Among their irreplaceable belongings were two cars with deep sentimental value - a rare 1950s Skoda, one of only two in Australia, and their wedding car, a 1980s BMW convertible.
The Saxons evacuated to the nearby marina, where they could do nothing but watch as their harbourside street went up in flames. They later learned their home had been destroyed after seeing it on the news.
As residents fled, neighbours banded together to help the elderly escape, carrying people to nearby train tracks, cutting through a fence and guiding them to safety.
Another Koolewong resident, Ross, walked along the foreshore with a suitcase and whatever he could salvage.
“We only had a few minutes to go back and grab some stuff,” he said.
Bureau of Meteorology meteorologist Edward Medlock said a southerly change was expected to have cooled the NSW coast down overnight, but temperatures were set to rise again on Tuesday, potentially reaching 41C in the Hunter Valley.
Visiting the Gosford RSL on Sunday, when his government declared a natural disaster in six local government areas, including the Central Coast and Upper Hunter, NSW Premier Chris Minns urged anyone in a bushfire-prone area to monitor conditions.
“We’ve been able to get emergency accommodation for many families, including 25 adults, and two children, who are staying in local hotels,” he said.
“No lives have been lost over the last 24 hours. It’s very important that in a difficult summer period, people listen to emergency services. We don’t want any lives lost. We can replace buildings. We can replace homes. We can’t replace people.”
Central Coast Council mayor Lawrie McKinna said the number of homes lost was “shocking”, while Gosford MP Liesl Tesch described the scenes as devastating.
It’s incomprehensible to know that you have lost everything,” she said.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese told the ABC’s Insiders program NSW was “facing quite a difficult (fire) season”.
“So, this summer, of course, like all summers that would appear in recent times, is going to be a difficult one,” he said.
“But NSW in particular has a range of preconditions, if you like, for being quite a difficult one.”
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