‘Herculean’ firefighters saved Peregian Beach from ‘doomsday’

Without the thin red line of exhausted firefighters, Peregian Beach would be a charred ruin.

An aerial photograph of Peregian Beach, on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast, showing how close the bushfires came to the seaside community. Picture: Lachie Millard

Without the thin red line of exhausted firefighters who somehow stood their ground at Peregian Beach, the Sunshine Coast resort town would be a charred ruin, its multi-million-dollar beach houses smouldering shells.

At the peak of the crisis on Tuesday, hundreds of homes were threatened and thousands of shocked residents fled, fearing for their lives, as the firestorm threatened to burn through suburban streets to the surf.

The danger was unprecedented: never before have such powerful bushfires roared out of Noosa National Park and encroached on one of the towns dotting the holiday strip north of Brisbane. At this time of year they should be gearing up for the approaching school holidays, not battening down.

The emergency was continuing as The Australian went to print, with evacuations under way as far north as Noosa, where 400 residents on the town’s outskirts were told by police to flee.

The miracle of Peregian Beach was starkly apparent from the air. Inland of the David Low Way, the highway separating the town from protected bushlands, a blackened moonscape extended as far as the eye could see. Evacuated couple Hugh and Bernadette Bauer were astonished to learn that their home in nearby Oriole Avenue was still standing.

The fire had been “blowing its ring off” when they left, Mr Bauer said. His wife couldn’t believe the intensity of the flames that had jumped the usually busy road. “It was burning trees in the median strip near the service station,” she said. “It was just raining embers and that’s what was catching the trees alight. It didn’t take long to spread.” At one point, 12 houses were erroneously reported to have gone up, showered by red-hot embers that burst into spotfires, fanned by the swirling winds. Amazingly, only one house was actually lost at Peregian Beach and another damaged. No one was hurt.

Firefighters battling to save property at Peregian Beach. Picture: Wavell Bush Photography.

“The fact that the damage and injury was so little, so reduced, was because of the herculean efforts of the firefighters,” acting Queensland premier Jackie Trad said, paying tribute to the 300-strong contingent that saved the town. “It was nothing short of a miracle.”

The overnight feat of firefighters was imperilled in the early afternoon on Tuesday by a strong southeasterly wind change that pushed the flames towards the enclave of Peregian Springs, sparking a fresh emergency.

A Boeing 737 air tanker, carrying 15,000 litres of gel retardant, was brought in to quell the outbreak, while waterbombing choppers swarmed the area.

Fire­fighters who had been on the line for up to 36 hours with little sleep toiled in the blustery conditions.

The wind shift realised the worst fears of West Peregian Beach couple Andrew and Rachel Sellman, who were among the 2500 locals forced to leave. They spent a sleepless Monday night watching the sky glow orange before evacuating at 11am on Tuesday at the behest of police.

“We didn’t expect the wind change,” Mr Sellman said. “I never thought you’d see embers and fires running down the street like that. It was scary.”

Evacuees Rachel and Andrew Sellman wait for news. Picture: Lyndon Mechielsen

Local real estate agent Johnathan Tomasini praised the heroics of firefighters who stayed to hose down threatened homes. The fences of some of Peregian Beach’s most expensive oceanfront properties caught alight but even then the houses were saved.

“The fire actually went over the top of David Low Way and the first streets and lit up the nature reserve on the beachfront,” he said. “That’s what took out the old timber home on Plover Street. People’s retaining walls were on fire at the back of their yards on the beachfront. It was scary stuff, doomsday like, with sparks flying across the road.

“I don’t know how they do it. If the fireys weren’t there, stacks of stuff would have gone up, 100 per cent … it got really dangerous there, the air was getting really thick, you could see sparks flying everywhere.”

But for others it was business as usual, despite the untimely interruption to the Sunshine Coast’s laid-back lifestyle. Hardy golfers took to the links at Peregian Springs even though the greens were surrounded by scorched earth, another reminder of how close the flames came to destroying the town.

Police said the fire that erupted at 4.30pm on Monday was ‘‘suspicious’’ and detectives had spoken to a “number of teenagers”.

Queensland Police Commissioner Katarina Carroll said up to eight of the 80 bushfires burning across Queensland may have been deliberately lit, and children were the suspected culprits in some of them.