Bushfires: Day of total devastation and terror

Cobargo residents have told of the devastation and terror they felt as fire roared through the village on the NSW south coast.

Malcolm Elmslie in the remains of his Cobargo house. Picture: Stuart McEvoy

Cobargo residents have told of the devastation and terror they felt as fire roared through the village on the NSW south coast, claiming the lives of two people, destroying dozens of homes and leaving about 10 key businesses in ruins.

Farmlands in the historic town of about 800 people were covered in ash from Tuesday’s blaze as residents surveyed the damage.

Locals whose properties were spared in Tuesday’s blaze fear they may not be so lucky on Saturday, when conditions are forecast to be worse.

There are also concerns for the economic future of the area because eateries and shops that have been destroyed in the town centre, including well-known pottery shop Bangles Gallery, enticed visit­ors to the south coast to stop in Cobargo for half a day.

Matthew Elmslie woke at 3.30am on Tuesday to see a 100m-wide fire charging towards his cattle farm in the historic town.

By sunset, all he had left was the clothes on his back and a torch — with treasured family photos and letters from his grandfather among the rubble where his home of 27 years once stood.

“Eventually the garden went alight and the house went alight and I just watched it go. I knew there was nothing I could do,” he said.

“I had all the family heirlooms. All my books, records, family ­papers. I had every letter my grandfather had received. I saved them. I can’t replace them.”

A phone box in Cobargo. Picture Gary Ramage

The razed seven-bedroom property, which included a grand piano, was built in 1911 by the son of one of Cobargo’s first settlers and prominent landholder William Tarlinton, whose family still has a presence in the town.

Yet, like many residents who walked through their fire-ravaged town on Wednesday, Mr Elmslie was not complaining about the fate handed to him by the brutal forces of nature. He is considering building a new home on the cattle farm or moving towns altogether.

“Even now I am thinking, well that is the start of something new,” he said.

Mary Ayliffe, 80, and her husband, Brian, were using hoses and water buckets to protect their neighbours’ homes during Tuesday’s fire when their shop was burned to the ground.

Ms Ayliffe met her husband when she started working at the shop when she was 15. It was previously owned by Mr Ayliffe’s parents, who lived in the destroyed home adjacent to the shop.

“But it is only a building,” Ms Ayliffe said, declaring she was grateful no one in her family died.

“I’m 80 years old and I suffer from Parkinson’s disease and we saved three homes between us.

“We have got six members of our family who are in the Rural Fire Service here — two grandchildren, a son, his wife, their son-in-law and Brian. Brian has been involved for 60 years.”

A local’s despair at a home lost in Mallacoota. Picture: David Caird

Roland Hough, who is in his 70s, was terrified as he fought off the fires from his home and small business. He said he had to save his property with a hose as the bushfire approached because he could not afford to get it insured.

“It was scary,” he said. “I thought I was on fire when a tree exploded. Everything was exploding. Some of the old original (commercial) buildings were destroyed and they are what brought the tourists.”

“This town survived a great deal on the passing traffic. People would have a break from their drive here after leaving Bega. It became touristy,” Mr Hough said.

“The pottery place has been popular for years.”

Cobargo, about 390km from Sydney, was traditionally a farming town and the sector remains important to the town’s economy.

A girl with a dead kangaroo in Mallacoota. Picture: David Caird

Mr Hough, who also saved the home next door to his, said he could not afford to insure his home and business, which is a restaurant in a brick and fibro home.

“I live on limited resources, like a lot of seniors,” he said.

“Sometimes that is the risk you have got to take when you can’t ­afford things.”

He has lived in the town for 50 years.

Power was on Wednesday restored to more than 11,000 ­customers on NSW’s south coast, although more than 30,000 ­people in the southeast of the state are still without power or the internet.

Endeavour Energy restored power to customers in its network on Wednesday on the mid-south coast between Ulladulla and Batemans Bay after bushfires had destroyed 45 power poles in the area on New Year’s eve.