FAMILY DRIVEN INTO THE SEA AS FIRE RAGES
Grandparents and five children seek refuge under the jetty
HOBART: Huddling in the water with fear etched on their faces, a terrified family was forced to take refuge under a jetty for more than two hours as the Australian wildfires tore through their town, Dunalley, Tasmania.
As the blaze destroyed their home, Tammy and Tim Holmes led their five young grandchildren to the only place they hoped the flames could not reach them.
With the oxygen fast running out in the polluted air, they clung to the wooden structure and each other for support as their hopes faded of finding a way out.
At times, the flames took hold on the jetty itself, forcing Holmes to scoop water from the sea to douse them.
Eventually, after two-and-a-half hours in the water, Holmes finally managed to locate a dinghy which they used to flee to a hotel outside the fire zone.
Meanwhile, the children’s mother, Bonnie Walker, feared her family had been killed.
She had left her children – twoyear- old Charlotte, four- year- old Esther, Liam, nine, 11-year-old Matilda and six-year-old Caleb – in the care of her parents while she attended a funeral.
Walker told how she drove to the service in Hobart, Tasmania, as fire ravaged the land either side of her and just made it through before the flames crossed the road and cut her off from her family.
She told Australia’s ABC network: “We just waited by the phone and received a message at 3.30pm to say that mum and dad had evacuated, that they were surrounded by fire, and could we pray.
“So I braced myself to lose my children and my parents.”
With the oxygen supply quickly running out in the polluted air, Walker said her father “rallied against all the odds” to retrieve the dinghy from the foreshore.
Holmes told how he sent his wife, their grandchildren and pet dog Polly to the nearby sea jetty when he saw
FOR TWO-AND-AHALF HOURS WE HUDDLED… ASH, SMOKE AND DEBRIS LEFT US WITH VERY LITTLE OXYGEN
smoke from the looming wildfire rise from a nearby ridge.
Despite the arrival of three fire trucks, the 62-year-old realised he could not defend the home he built himself.
“I looked at the firefighters and said, ‘I have to go to Tammy and the kids’,” he told the West Australian.
“For the next two-and-a-half hours, we huddled under the jetty as the fire intensified and produced a plume of smoke, ash and debris that left us with very little oxygen.
“There were times when we had to move out deeper because it was too hot and there were times when the jetty itself caught fire. I was able to scoop some water on to the jetty and put it out.”
They eventually made their way to safety as the fire burnt itself out. He said his house was “all gone” but his family had survived.
Record temperatures across southern Australia cooled yesterday, reducing the danger from scores of raging wildfires but probably bringing only a brief reprieve from the summer’s extreme heat and fire risk.
The bureau forecast above average temperatures for the remainder of the season, compounding the fire danger created by a lack of rain across central and southern Australia over the past six months.
In Victoria state, north of Tasmania, a fire injured six people, destroyed four homes and caused the evacuation of the farming community of Carngham, country fire authority operations officer Ian Morley said.
Cooler conditions had brought relief to firefighters who would work through the day to build earth breaks to fully contain the fire before the warmer temperatures forecast for tomorrow, Morley said.
North of Victoria in New South Wales, Australia’s most populous state, firefighters were battling 141 fires, including 31 that had not yet been contained. – Daily Mail