‘If that’s hell I’ve seen it’: Surf Coast residents remember Ash Wednesday 40 years on

‘Red wall of fire’: Forty years since the harrowing blaze that killed three people and wiped out 729 homes across the Surf Coast, survivors have relived the terror of that fateful day.

A spot on the Great Ocean Road, outside Lorne, where a house once had a spectaular view before the Ash Wednesday bushfires of Febriary 16, 1983.

Forty years since the harrowing blaze that killed three people and wiped out 729 homes across the Surf Coast, firefighters and residents have relived the terror of that fateful day and their incredible stories of bravery and survival.

The Ash Wednesday bushfires changed Australia and, up until the Black Saturday tragedy of 2009, was the deadliest in the nation’s history with 75 deaths, including 47 in Victoria.

One of the most ferocious fire fronts was behind Lorne, with the coastal town’s CFA Second Lieutenant Leon Armistead recalling his first sight of ‘a complete wall of fire” as he turned the bend at Big Hill Track.

Lorne Ash Wednesday bushfires firefighter and survivor Leon Armistead.

“I’ll never forget it in my life, ever – these two great big white gum trees, and the track went between them and all I saw was this red wall and two white gum trees. It was like a

painting,” he said.

“As soon as I saw it I just thought s**t, I’ve got to get out of here.”

Having driven from the sea to the bush on his own, Mr Armistead suddenly stared his own mortality in the face.

Retreating back to the coastline, the hellish firestorm was spotting in front of him, devouring houses in Lorne as its terrified residents ran for their lives to the beach and the famous pier.

“I remember driving off, I wasn’t panicking but I was going way too fast,” he said.

“If I had an accident and hit a tree I knew I was gone. So I had to calm myself down.

“The noise was unbelievable, it was roaring. It’s hard to explain it. It was like a sauna.”

Margaret Ariss stands in front of her Lorne home. It was destroyed by the fires.

The enormous front grew to sweep the Otways and Surf Coast through Big Hill, Eastern View, Moggs Creek, Fairhaven and Aireys Inlet and Anglesea.

Mr Armistead said the sight of Urquhart Bluff beach was etched in his memory.

“It was just completely red, like a red carpet,” he said.

“No person, nothing ever in the world, could do anything to stop it when it’s like that.

“You’re at its mercy.”

The blaze would singe 41,000 hectares and claim the lives of Ilie Mierla (Deans Marsh-Lorne Road), Colin Barton (Fairhaven) and Lloyd Venables (Aireys Inlet).

Aireys Inlet CFA second lieutenant at the time, Howard Hughes, said “entire house roofs were flying around.”

The Ash Wednesday aftermath at Fairhaven. Photo credit: Keith Cecil.

“When it came, it came that hard you were running for your life and salvaging what you could,” he said.

“The smoke started to blow, you could hear it like tanks coming up the hill and it was like a war zone with gas cylinders going off.

“I’m telling ya, entire house roofs were flying around.”

Barrabool Shire president, Pat Hickford, recalled being one of many Anglesea residents escaping to the beach.

“We’d be looking up and you could see houses exploding all over the place, and you kept thinking to yourself ‘I wonder whether that was ours?” she said.

Her husband, John, said Noble Street “was just smouldering bits and pieces, black as ink with these bits of fire.”

“I looked over the hill at the top of my place at the back street there … and I said to myself if that’s hell I’ve seen it,” he said.”

Weary firefighters take a break at Lorne during the Ash Wednesday bushfires.

Heather Smith was forced to jump into the back dam on her Pennyroyal Road property with her three-year-old son when the inferno turned towards them.

“I headed down the back to a big dam and hopped in and I sort of played games with him,” she said.

“There were trees all along the creek close to this dam and once the fire got into the trees it just took off.

“Then it hit the bush and just exploded and I thought, that’s it.”

They are some of the stories set to be shared at a special Surf Coast Shire Council community event on February 16 to mark the 40th anniversary of the bushfire.

Ash Wednesday Remembered will be held from 12pm-2pm in the community centre at Aireys Inlet, and aims to provide a space for survivors and others to come together in memory and tribute, with static displays. People can register to attend at surfcoast.vic.gov.au/AshWednesday

Originally published as ‘If that’s hell I’ve seen it’: Surf Coast residents remember Ash Wednesday 40 years on