The couple faced the strange prospect of needing to keep warm in the cold water as the fire burned around them, so they hugged each other for heat.

Mrs Pascoe said: “I just kept going under. It was the only way to survive. And I kept saying, ‘How long does it take for a house to burn down?’ We were freezing.”

They waited for six hours for their neighbours’ home to be consumed by the flames and the fire to pass before they could get out and warm themselves on the charred patio around the pool.

Mrs Pascoe later discovered her phone, which she had left in her shoe on the edge of the pool, had been melted by the flames.

As Mr and Mrs Pascoe clung to each other in the water, their daughters Zoe, 38, and Mia, 32, endured an anguished wait to learn their parents’ fate.

By 7am in the morning Zoe said she was preparing herself for the worst and told her husband: “Do you think they are gone? Do you think I need to prepare myself for this?”