Bushfires: Makeshift ‘communes’ shelter refugees

Scores of people are living in tents and other makeshift ‘communes’ more than two weeks after their homes were ravaged.

Andrew Spencer at his makeshift accommodation at the Cobargo Showgrounds. Picture: Sean Davey.

Scores of NSW and Victorian residents are still living in tents and other makeshift “communes” more than two weeks after their homes were ravaged by fires, with other newly homeless victims put up in hotel rooms booked by their insurers “in anticipation” of their homes’ fiery destruction.

Thousands of home owners have also offered properties and spare beds as free accommodation for residents of the at least 3550 homes across NSW, Victoria and South Australia that have been destroyed or damaged in recent fires.

“Insurers have been reserving hotel rooms in anticipation of demand­,” said Insurance Council of Australia spokesman Campbell Fuller. “They have been on the front foot.”

Mr Fuller said accommodation was “not readily available” for many residents of remote areas who had lost their homes, and insurers “work with them to give them their needs, if that means accommodation in a different town”.

“There are hundreds and hundred­s of families in hotel and motel rooms, and serviced apartments, across the states,” he said, noting that many insurers had organ­ised emergency accommod­ation for customers even if it wasn’t covered in their policies.

The owners of more than 2100 properties in Victoria and more than 420 in NSW have listed their homes as free emergency accommodation as part of homesharing website Airbnb’s “Open homes” program.

On Wednesday, Airbnb manager­ Susan Wheeldon said the program was being extended until January 31. “We are very grateful to those hosts who have opened their homes to provide free housing and we encourage others who live near ­affected areas to consider doing the same, if they are in a position to assist,” she said.

Many people have donated tents and unused campervans to bushfire relief centres.

At the Cobargo Showgrounds, a non-council, resident-run relief centre for the southern NSW town, 64-year-old Andrew “Sunder” Spencer spent Wednesday night in a donated tent, more than 14 days after a fire destroyed his home 45 minutes away in Tinpot.

“From the day we bought the property, I knew the potential for an out-of-control fire would be high, but you sort of never believe it will happen,” he said.

The former art teacher first evacuated to the Rural Fire Service­ shed at Tinpot, where he and his partner, Mary, showered and lived from December 31 until January 3, before they were evacuated to Cobargo for medical ­attention.

Farmer and fencer Nick Gard in Bermagui. Picture: Sean Davey.

After being advised to remain in the larger town, he set up camp at the showgrounds.

He has not been able to access his property since, but has glimpsed the “devastation” of his area on a drive nearby.

“There wasn’t a big tree left, it was shocking,” he said.

Mr Spencer doesn’t know how long he will be at the showgrounds, saying he is yet to “arrive back in my own skin”.

“I’m not sure how long I’ll be here, I haven’t got a plan,” he said, optimistically pointing out that he now lived in “the heart of Cobargo’s new commune” at the showgrounds, helped by ­“astounding” volunteer support.

On Wednesday, about 50 people­ were living at the showgrounds, a steep decline after “most of the town’s” 770 residents were evacuated there after New Year’s Eve, Bega Valley shire deputy mayor Sharon Tapscott said.

“There was nowhere else to go,’’ she added. “Cobargo was ­pretty devastated.”

It is estimated that 104 homes in the town were lost, with 400 properties damaged.

The annual Cobargo Folk Festival, which brings in upwards of $1m to the local economy, has been cancelled for next month ­because of its reliance on billeting visiting artists in now-destroyed homes.

Benefiting from the emergency accommodation his insurer booked in Bermagui is Nick Gard.

The Coolagolite farmer and fencer evacuated his home just east of Cobargo at 4am on December 31.

“I knew that if there was a fire, I’d get out because I didn’t have the water to defend it anyway, it’s just been so dry,” he said.

“How many litres do you need to defend this sort of bush?”

Mr Gard thought he had cleared enough bush around his house, which was double-brick, but “it just came right through and annihilated the place”.

The 42-year-old has struggled emotionally to face the mammoth task that awaits him, of cleaning up his burnt-out home and destocking­ the few animals from his 52ha property that survived.

Since the fires, he has revisited his home to bury his sheep and cows that either died in the fire or were shot because of injury in the days after.