The town, now only accessible by air and sea, has become a symbol of the unprecedented nature of Australia’s bushfire crisis

This article is more than 8 months old

This article is more than 8 months old

As they set out on a small landing craft, Nick Ritar could hardly see the mammoth, 180-metre-long HMAS Choules. The smoke was too thick.

Days after Ritar, his partner, Kirsten Bradley, and their son, Ashar, hunkered down in a home as fires raged on the Victorian coastal town of Mallacoota, the Tasmanian family were among those rescued by the Australian navy.

Speaking to Guardian Australia a few hours before the ship docked at Hastings, east of Melbourne, Ritar was still stunned by the scale of the crisis.

“You look down upon these giant shipping containers on the main deck with red kangaroos on the side of them and big words emblazoned on them, Australian Aid,” he said.

One adult would stay in the safest room with a group of children. It was under a concrete slab and had no windows

“Australia’s had bushfires forever, but we’ve never had to call in the navy to evacuate 1,000 people from a coastal town. That doesn’t happen. It’s hard to wrap your head around.”

Mallacoota, now only accessible by air and sea, has become a symbol of the unprecedented nature of the bushfire crisis.

About 4,000 people, mostly holidaymakers, were forced to the foreshore as fires moved quickly towards the town. If the heat got too close, they were told, they would have to get in the water.

On Saturday a red haze hung over the town once again, signifying that the fires terrorising other parts of the state might yet return to Mallacoota.

Mimi Becker (@MimiRoseBecker) 2:25pm at Mallacoota. The south westerly winds have hit. @9NewsAUS pic.twitter.com/5nGYQksDHQ

In the lead-up to New Year’s Eve, the fire threat had crept up on the holiday town, though it was not among those listed in a mass evacuation throughout eastern Victoria.

As it became clear that the threat was increasing, Ritar’s family moved from his in-laws’ place to a family friend’s house around the corner. At all times, Ritar said, one adult would stay in the safest room with a group of children. It was under a concrete slab and had no windows.

Mallacoota fire: images of 'mayhem' and 'armageddon' as bushfires rage Read more

The others set up a generator and watched for updates on their mobile phones. They also went out into the street to see which homes were still occupied, sealing properties that had been abandoned in a hurry.

In between, they would pop back to the house for a coffee.

“It’s kind of this strange mix of panic and boredom, waiting for the fires to come or the winds to change,” Ritar said.

By the morning of New Year’s Eve, sirens rang out across the town. The sky turned black, then bright red. In the distance there was the sound of popping: gas bottles or cars exploding.

“That’s a scary sound when you can hear it getting closer and closer,” Ritar said.

They ventured out again. “This is when we could see the really big plumes of smoke coming towards us,” he said.

We walked a couple of kilometres along the beach before it just got too heartbreaking

A house with cars parked around it caught fire less than 100 metres away. “It went off like a bomb. That was the probably the scariest moment.”

Country Fire Authority crews came in a truck and had almost extinguished the blaze when they ran out of water. They couldn’t come back. “They had to go,” said Ritar. “They obviously had bigger problems.”

Mallacoota did too. A wind change pushed the worst of the blazes west of the centre of the town but dozens of homes were destroyed in the fires. With all nearby roads closed, the town was completely isolated. Helicopters and police boats ferried in food and other supplies but reports of shortages emerged.

Across several kilometres of beach at Bastion Point, dead birds sat in lines along the sand. Ritar listed those he saw: a kookaburra, then a magpie, then a barn owl, then a king parrot, then a New Holland honeyeater.

“They would have been swept out into the clouds and then deposited in the ocean,” he said. “Then they’d washed up on the shore as bits of charcoal and burnt leaves. One after the other, just asphyxiated by the fire. We must have walked a couple of kilometres along it before it just got too heartbreaking.”

On Wednesday the Victorian government confirmed it had called in the defence force, and the navy would send HMAS Choules and a number of smaller vessels to evacuate hundreds of people by sea. By Friday, Ritar and his family were gliding along the water towards the safety of a navy vessel normally deployed to assist in overseas humanitarian disasters.

“Normally, I think he would be pretty excited to see such a thing,” Ritar said of Ashar, 10.

On board, the mood reflected the varied experiences of those on board. “There’s people here who have lost their homes, they’ve evacuated because they literally no longer had a home,” Ritar said.

“There’s other people who are backpackers from around the world. They’re doing what young people do, meeting each other, playing cards and laughing and joking.”

The evacuees were transported to a disaster relief centre at the Melbourne convention centre on Saturday afternoon.