Trapped between flames and ocean

WALLED in by an inferno in a remote seaside village, two women drove their Land Rover onto the beach and stayed there during much of the night with embers showering down around them.

Wendy Dewberry and Julie Gosling were the only two people in Noetzie, outside Knysna, when a wall of fire cut them off from the rest of the world on Wednesday afternoon.

They are the only permanent residents of Noetzie, where they each own a house — Dewberry on top of the hill overlooking the beach and Gosling on the water’s edge.

With the fire bearing down on Dewberry’s house, they discovered it was already too late to flee via the only road serving the settlement of about 20 houses — including the well-known Noetzie castles.

“We tried to get out but it was blocked by fire — we were locked in,” said Dewberry, standing in the garden of her ruined home. They drove to Gosling’s house where, exhausted, they fell asleep.

“At 2.30am my dog woke me up. That’s when Julie looked up and said: ‘What is that flickering?’

“There were flames right outside the window, the whole area was just patches of burning.

“We were stranded and it was so thick with smoke. So we drove onto the beach and parked as close as we could to the water,” Dewberry said.

“Every time there was a gust of wind there were flying embers coming like a rainbow of fireworks over the beach, landing all around us. It was really scary. We didn’t know if we would live or die.

“We sat there until about 7am. We thought our best bet was to be near the water and that was one of our saving graces because the wind was so bad it brought us fresh air from the sea.”

Eventually they saw the flashlight of a friend coming down the road to look for them. “That’s when we knew the passage was clear.”

It was scary. We didn’t know if we would live or die