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Some much-needed relief in the form of water and other emergency supplies has arrived by boat in the East Gippsland town of Mallacoota, a day after destructive bushfires swept through the coastal community.
Key points:
- About 1.6 tonnes of supplies came in by boat for the 4,000 stranded residents
- Jann Gilbert said the loss of all of her possessions in the fire felt "surreal"
- For the latest information, visit the Vic Emergency website
Yesterday, about 4,000 residents sheltered on the Mallacoota foreshore under red skies as a bushfire closed in on them.
The blaze, which is still burning and threatening homes and lives near Cann River, reduced buildings along several streets to rubble, but firefighters managed to save the town's centre.
On Wednesday afternoon, a boat arrived carrying 1.6 tonnes of water and diesel to help fuel generators in the town, which is without power.
Those in the town said dozens of homes had been destroyed as emergency crews tried to clear the road to the airport.
Jann Gilbert's possessions were "totally incinerated" in the fire but, at the end of the day, she and her animals are safe and for that she is grateful.
"There is just simply nothing left, nothing at all, except ash," she said.
"I think it will probably hit me sometime later. It's a bit surreal at the moment. It hasn't quite kicked in."
She said they were confident the firefighters would contain the blaze away from the wharf and the community hall.
"But once a fire like that is upon you we would have had no choice but to get everyone into the lake. That's the only option we had," she said.
She blames the ferocity of the fire on climate change.
Two Black Hawk helicopters have arrived in Bairnsdale to provide humanitarian support for communities cut off by the fires.
They will be based at RAAF East Sale.
'End of days'
Tony Priest has been travelling from Melbourne to Mallacoota for the last four years to play with his band at the local pub on New Year's Eve.
He said he had never seen more "apocalyptic" conditions in his life.
Mr Priest and the five other band members defended the pub as embers rained down on the building.
"It was terrifying. Like the end of days," he said.
He said when the ember attack hit about an hour later, the band members kept fighting to save the pub as large chunks of glowing bark "showered" down on them.
"We used a hose, we had Corona buckets filled with water," Mr Priest said.
When the ember attacked was over they started wetting towels and blocking the edges of windows to stop the smoke coming into their hotel room in the pub.
"It was hard to breathe, we thought it was the end," he said.
East Gippsland incident controller Ben Rankin said the breadth of the fires and the impact on communities had exceeded his expectations.
"I mentioned it was similar to Black Saturday and I think it has turned out to be that sort of impact for Gippsland," he said.
The state's Emergency Management Commissioner Andrew Crisp said at least 10 homes had been destroyed in Mallacoota.
Business owner Mark Peters returned from the foreshore to find he had lost his home and bed and breakfast in the fires, and told RN Breakfast the town looked like a war zone.
"There's nothing, not a thing. It's all black, smoky, all the trees are burnt out, no leaves left on them. Everywhere that used to have koalas and bell birds and that sort of thing, everything's gone," he said.
The town is still without power, and a "boil water" advice is in place for the area, as authorities urged residents the town's reserves were low.
The town, usually a tourist destination in the summer, is in Victoria's far east and accessible only by the Princes Highway — which remains cut off.
"It's already a remote location, it's always been — that's the gem of Mallacoota," said Gippsland MP Darren Chester.
"It's difficult to get to, you get there and you escape life and you have a wonderful holiday.
"Things have turned pretty bad in the last 48 hours."
Similar scenes were seen yesterday further west at Sarsfield and Clifton Creek, where a separate bushfire tore through on Monday.
Mark Trellegas told the ABC the sky was black in the early hours of Tuesday morning, which then turned "blood red" as the fire closed in.
He said the thousands of people huddled down by the water were calm and quiet and people offered food and drinks to their neighbours.
He said nearly everyone knew someone who had lost a home in the town, and he suspected it would take "many years" to rebuild the town.
Resident Don Ashby told ABC Gippsland he had lost his house and estimated about 50 homes had been destroyed.
"It's just stuff. It's an opportunity to build a new home and fill it full of new junk," he told ABC Gippsland.
"Mallacoota community are a bunch of triers and a bunch of people who get on with it. We all pull together when we need to, and that's pretty clearly what's happening here."
Although the fire passed through the town yesterday afternoon, the area remains cut off and under an emergency warning for the blaze.
"The immediate worry has passed, but … we're under this threat until the next time we get some really heavy rain," Mr Ashby said.
The Australian Defence Force has been called in to help with the bushfire emergency.
A police boat took 1.6 tonnes of water into the town and a larger relief barge left Melbourne on Wednesday morning loaded with food and supplies.
Premier Daniel Andrews said defence helicopters would be used to provide a "shift change" for firefighters.
Topics: bushfire, fires, disasters-and-accidents, mallacoota-3892, sale-3850, melbourne-3000, vic
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