Coles Bay mum Rachel Jaeschke on Friendly Beaches bushfire alarm

Mum Rachel Jaeschke has barely slept. Her husband was on the front line fighting a bushfire while her children spent the night with a family in Bicheno because the main road was closed.

Mother of three Rachel Jaeschke has spent the night worrying for her kids after bushfires on the East-Coast separated them. Picture: Nikki Davis-Jones

Coles Bay mum Rachel Jaeschke has had four hours sleep.

Her husband was on the front line fighting a severe bushfire at Friendly Beaches while her three children spent the night with a family in Bicheno because the main road was closed.

“As a community, we have kind of been waiting for this to happen,” she said.

“You’ve just got to look at what’s happening around other parts of the world to sort of acknowledge that there’s something bigger at play here that we really need to be taking notice of.

“But we can learn from the last 24 hours and perhaps be more prepared for when the next one comes because it will come. It’s not a matter of if, but a matter of when.”

She said she is concerned if a bushfire cuts off Coles Bay again, emergency services might not be able to provide assistance to the tourism township.

“If the wind is up, no one can come across the bay, no one can come down the road. We are completely isolated,” she said.

“We need stocks here of things that we can use to help people who are stranded, help vulnerable people who live in the community, and just be able to assist where possible.

“We need a stock of blankets and sleeping mats, we need bottled water. We need long life food. We need provisions that are kept in this community in our town that can be easily accessed if needed.

Damage from the bushfire in the Coles Bay Rd vicinity. Picture: Nikki Davis-Jones

“We didn’t have anything we could freely access … if this happens in the middle of summer, there would potentially be five times, maybe 10 times as many people stranded here as there were last night.”

Mrs Jaeschke and a friend knew it was their responsibility to prepare food and water for volunteer emergency services.

“We knew that we needed to get to the shop, and we needed to buy water and Powerade and barley sugars and muesli bars and go get them some sort of a meal,” she said.

Freycinet Lodge provided salad wraps for Mrs Jaeschke to take to responders.

“It was on us to make sure that our volunteers were fed, because they’re out there for hours and hours and they may not have had anything to eat, when they get that phone call to say that the fire has started.”

Her three children, Sienna, 10, Barney, 8 and Evie, 6, stayed with a family in Bicheno overnight because the road home was closed when school finished.

Mrs Jaeschke said it was less alarming knowing her children had a safe place to stay north of the bushfires.

“We were really fortunate that we had some really beautiful families reach out and say that they’d be happy to take our children,” she said.

“I have three children. So for one family to take all three of my children. I know that is a huge ask. And I am so grateful that they put their hands up.

“It meant that my husband could fully focus on fighting the fire and I could fully focus on the jobs that I knew I needed to do like to get food out to the volunteers.”

The owner of Coles Bay's only pub, Iluka Tavern, John Douglas Kain, said his children were stuck in Bicheno during the fires. Picture: Nikki Davis-Jones.

The only pub in Coles Bay – Iluka Tavern – had between 80 to 100 people last night. The unexpected guests included a school group of 20 children who stayed in a room at the back of the tavern.

“It’s a small town with not great deal of places to go, usually the local watering hole is the community centre,” owner Jacob Douglas Kain said.

Mr Kain’s children Jarrah, 4, and Harper 18-months, have been stuck in Bicheno since school finished on Tuesday.

“I’m lucky I’ve got some friends and family there that minded them for the night,” he said.

“We’re hoping Coles Bay Rd will open by 5pm so we can get them through and get them home.”