Miracle tales of survival as deadly bushfires continue to ravage NSW
Among the horror of the deadly NSW fires that continued to rage yesterday, tales of hope and survival emerged — a couple who sheltered in a shed, a woman who cowered in a creek with a dog under each arm, and others who managed to flee the flames.
NSW
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It was the frantic call that Melissa Christie thought would be the last time she heard her mother’s voice.
“We are surrounded by fire. I can’t talk. I love you.” Then the phone went dead.
For the next hour the Nymboida woman, 32, thought her parents Dave and Jenny had been killed by the worst firestorm in living memory.
The husband and wife had stayed behind to defend their home while Melissa had escaped to safety with her three-year-old son Koji.
Dave, Jenny and their dog Polly were forced to huddle in a shed after both their home and daughter’s cottage went up in flames.
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The shed was 50m away and packed with petrol tanks and cars. Luckily, 59-year-old Dave was able to use what little water they had left to stop the inferno burning the shed.
“We have lost everything but tonight I feel so positive because I still have my parents,” Melissa said.
“I thought they were gone. We’ve lost all our photos, my wedding dress, everything.
“We have each other though.”
Jenny, 55, said all her neighbours were shocked with how quickly the fire moved.
When the firestorm hit she thought it was a jumbo jet passing overhead.
“We have fought fires before but this is the most catastrophic we have ever seen,” Jenny said.
“There is no doubt my husband is Superman. Without him we would both be dead.”
Jenny suffered a burned ear and Dave copped some embers in his hair.
Polly’s paws were burned and they have applied Manuka honey and given the pooch some pink socks.
The newly homeless family has been taken in by friends in Grafton and were unable to return to the property yesterday. They intend to go back today to salvage whatever is left.
It was just one of many shocking, horrifying and amazing stories from two days of fire terror that claimed at least three lives, as many as 150 properties, uncounted numbers of native wildlife and thousands upon thousands of hectares of bush.
The three people lost were Julie Fletcher, from Johns River, and Vivian Chaplain and George Nole, both from Wytaliba.
As a raging inferno destroyed her home a few metres away, Kim Macdonald cowered in a creek with a dog under each arm and a wet blanket over her face, praying they would survive.
She lay there terrified for three hours, as fireballs flew over her head, listening to her beloved home burn, while her firefighter partner was out protecting other people’s houses.
“It was really bloody scary,” the 53-year-old from Bobin said.
“A fireball just came over the hill and I knew it was going to be snap, crackle and pop.
“If there had been three fire trucks out the front of my house, it wouldn’t have changed anything — the fire was that fierce and moving that quickly.
“I was completely numb, all I could hear were gas bottles exploding and I knew my house was gone. It was really bloody scary.”
She recalled how she waded from one side of the creek to the other to escape the worst of the flames. As much for her own benefit as theirs, she constantly assured her border collie Neve and staffy Pepi that everything would be all right.
Ms Macdonald’s partner, Gary Greene, 55, was among the 1500 NSW Rural Fire Service volunteers who have spent the past two days fighting to save homes from the 84 blazes that have torn through the state.
Mr Greene said he and a friend, John Howard, 59, raced to find his partner after hearing a call over the radio that the 136-year-old Bobin Creek School next door to his home had gone.
“She had been sitting in the creek for three hours just hoping she wouldn’t die,” he said.
Yesterday, a visibly shell-shocked Ms Macdonald wandered through the rubble of her 109-year-old historic home, which she had spent the last 11 years renovating, stopping when the smell of smoke made her feel ill.
Everything was gone, including furniture her grandfather Archie made in the early 1900s.
Old friend Mr Howard said Ms Macdonald was “absolutely devastated” when they found her.
“When the fire kicked off, the whole mountain above town just went red,” Mr Howard said.
“It looked evil. I’d never seen anything like it.”
Firefighters are still taking stock of the devastation but early estimates suggest 20 homes in Bobin were burned down.
A “number”, believed to be at least five people are still missing, with fears the toll will rise as emergency services go into devastated areas.
Brothers James and Daniel Price decided to defend three generations of family property from the inferno bearing down on their Blaxland Creek homes on Friday night.
James had already packed his family’s belongings and believed he could protect his properties, west of Grafton. The fire had other ideas.
“My plan was to watch the horizon and, if it was a grass fire, we would fight it,” 39-year-old James said. “But when it was turned into a crown fire I knew that there was no hope in hell. As it got close to us it looked like it had died right down and then the wind came up and the whole horizon went red. It went ballistic.”
The pair decided to leave just after midnight. But shortly after they jumped in a car to leave, Daniel ran back to his house to get his wallet.
“Everything except the middle of the paddock was burning,” James said.
“He was inside for two minutes but it felt like two hours.
“At this point I was thinking I do not want to leave my brother right behind, but the flames were right in front of me 30m away.”
The pair escaped with their lives but Daniel’s home, which was built by their father Ray, was destroyed.
Thanks to the vagaries of fire, James’s property, which he shares with his wife and four children next door to his brother’s, was spared.
At a separate fire 200km south, near Taree, firefighters saved the home of paraplegic Peter Campbell, 49.
Mr Campbell, his friend and a carer had attempted to leave the home down a dirt driveway but were trapped by rapidly advancing flames.
The firefront raced through the tall gums before firefighters, with their backs almost at Mr Campbell’s brick home, halted the blaze.
“It’s crazy how fast the fire raced up to the house and spot fires sprang up behind the house,” friend Dylan Williams, 23, said. “We were thinking about evacuating but when we got to the end of the driveway we were trapped by flames. It went from a grass fire to 12ft high in a minute.”
Mr Campbell’s carer Jacquetta Axton, 36, feared for her life.
“I have never been so scared in my life,” Ms Axton said. “It was absolutely terrifying.”
The coastal fire at Dunbogan, south of Port Macquarie, forced 62-year-old Kim Pearce and her dog Madam from her unit on Friday night.
“It was just a red glow everywhere,” Ms Pearce said.
“It was very eerie and very scary.”
Ms Pearce also collected her 87-year-old father, Percy Fry, from nearby and the three spent the night at Laurieton United Services Club with about 1500 other evacuees.
“I’d love to give thanks to (club manager) Rob Dwyer and all the volunteer workers. They did a wonderful job,” Ms Pearce said through tears.
Midcoast Mayor David West cried as he spoke to an evacuation centre near Taree.
“To go into a room of a couple of hundred of people and talk to them, I’m sorry, I broke down and cried, you feel so helpless,” Mr West said.
“You see tears in their eyes, you see the sense of hopelessness, knowing they’ve probably lost everything they own. It’s such an incredible, emotional time.”
The retired policeman, who lives in Brimbin, said the fire was “a disaster of magnificent proportions”.
Originally published as Miracle tales of survival as deadly bushfires continue to ravage NSW