Tathra bushfire: Utter devastation on Dilkera Road after inferno razes homes
SOME ran for their lives, some fought for their homes, some lent a helping hand while others missed the whole thing and, each of those who call Tathra’s Dilkera Rd home, will have a tale to tell of the devastating bushfire.
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SOME ran for their lives, some fought for their homes, some lent a helping hand while others missed the whole thing.
When all this is over, and the wounds begin to heal, each of those who call Tathra’s Dilkera Rd home will have their own tales to tell of the devastating bushfire.
It was 1pm on a stinking hot Sunday afternoon when smoke began to rise from nearby bushland, flames fanned by vicious north-westerly winds.
Reports began to suggest the sleepy south coast village was under threat.
An hour later, 39-year-old Tathra-raised Shannon Williams packed his wife and two kids into a car and sent them to safety.
Mr Williams was determined to stay and fight the blaze. Not so his immediate neighbours.
“One of them just put their gas bottle outside, got in his car and drove off,” Mr Williams said.
As the blaze leapt over an inland ridge and began heading for the coast, he realised he was alone. “I wasn’t going to go until them houses were on fire,” he said.
Fellow local Jim Buckley does not carry a mobile phone and therefore missed the 3.48pm Rural Fire Service warning to seek shelter.
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So, by 5pm, Mr Buckley was watching from his front porch as the fire engulfed a row of eight houses down the street — numbers 63 through 49.
“It was coming through here, flying up there, it was unbelievable,” he said.
Elsewhere along the beleaguered street, neighbours checked in on a 94-year-old living around the corner. He slept through the whole thing.
Julian Brown, 33, almost escaped the carnage too, killing two spot fires, only to have an ember ignite and destroy his beloved Toyota 86 sports car.
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As the various dramas unfolded, Mr Williams did his best, armed only with a low-powered garden hose as the fire ripped through a gully behind his home.
“I just kept walking up and down with a garden hose ... I flooded the whole valley,” he said. “I got the chainsaw out and dumped a fair few big trees. There was a thumping big tree and the top of it was all embers and they were flying everywhere.
“(Gas bottles) were going off like bombs all over the place. You’ve just got to get in and have a go.”
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Terry Dixon, who lives opposite, darted across to help but had problems of his own.
“I said, ‘You stay on your side because it’s coming down your gully’,” Mr Williams said.
Then he spotted a flaming palm tree in his neighbour’s back yard.
“It was right beside the house. I was like, ‘F ...!’. Dropped that hose, ran through her front door, grabbed their hose and sat there. If her house caught ... mine was next,” he said.
Mr Williams fought the fire until 4am Monday — then cracked a beer.
Four properties around his family home were still standing, as well as his own.
But others were beyond his reach. “This was Dot McLean’s house; she’s an old school teacher,” he said.
The pile of brick and ash which used to be 49 Dilkera St was the childhood home of 39-year-old Baz Manning, who looked on in disbelief yesterday.
“I lived here for 20 years,” he said. “My mum died in the front room.”
