Guardian Australia reporter Christopher Knaus and photographer Mike Bowers join the Cowie family defending their property about 100km from Canberra

Terror on all sides: inside a firestorm tearing through the Australian bush

Terror on all sides: inside a firestorm tearing through the Australian bush

The fear in the eyes of Claire and Laurence Cowie’s horses is unsettling.

On all sides of their paddock, flames are dancing in the distance.

The mountains looming above Tallabrook Lodge, about an hour’s drive south on the highway from Canberra, are glowing an angry red.

Behind a small hill to the south, a patch of native tea trees has exploded, sending flames and thick black smoke high above the ridgeline and igniting a grassfire that races northwards at breakneck speed.

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The panicked horses are pacing circles along the paddock’s edge. They’re nervous. Everyone in this region is.

Fires around Australia’s capital have been raging for days, enveloping the city in smoke and threatening towns and suburbs on its outer edges.

But Laurence Cowie is calm. He’s been watching the fire since it broached the hilltops at 6.30am. The house is prepared. There’s little fuel around and a clear break between the home and the old, dried-out gums and pines that line parts of the property.

Play Video 0:31 'Fire on all sides of us': bushfires rage 100km from Canberra – video

“I’ve got the beer on ice,” Laurence jokes to the Guardian. “Power’s always the first thing to go. Warm beer: it’s deadly.”

Each time a spot fire threatens the fringes of his property, Laurence floors his ute to the scene, dousing the flames before they can take hold.

As the vehicle zips to and fro across Tallabrook Lodge, the sky overhead is darkening. The wind begins to whip through the valley, gusting with all-consuming force.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Laurence Cowie dousing flames. Photograph: Mike Bowers/The Guardian

The Cowies are at the edge of the property, protecting their stables, when the chaos arrives. From nowhere a wind picks up and sends fire barrelling towards the back of their home. Laurence is too far away to do anything.

Screams for help are muffled by the wind. Each new yell draws thick smoke into the lungs.

Inside, the wind rattles the windows. Flames are licking at the back wall. Each glass pane becomes a portal to the hell outside.

Everywhere is chaos. The horses break free and run wildly from the flames.

New fires are breaking out on all sides. Laurence and Claire are shouting orders above the wind’s roar to the media who have stayed at their property.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Photographer Alex Ellinghausen fights a fire at Tallabrook Lodge. Photograph: Mike Bowers/The Guardian

Journalists are on hoses. Photographers are driving cars to already burned-out earth to save them.

All the while, ash and dirt is whipped up into the air and thrown at eye level.

“We’re fucked,” one photographer says amid the chaos. “This is real hairy.”

Christopher Knaus (@knausc) Laurence Cowie trying to stop the flames destroying his water tank a bit earlier. #bushfires @_LisaMCox pic.twitter.com/GDf0QxGZ9C

The three dogs inside, Smudge, Sassy, and Bella, are as panicked as the horses.

At one point, Bella tries to make a break for it when the door is opened by someone trying to temporarily escape the inferno outside.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Fire consumes a stable at Tallabrook Lodge. Photograph: Mike Bowers/The Guardian

The terror lasts until the fire has nowhere left to burn. Its fury only abates when it has no more grass to feed on.

It finally burns itself out and an eerie calm descends on the valley.

All that’s left is blackened earth. The hills to the west are burnt and smouldering. Thick smoke still lingers.

The paddocks on every side are scorched right up to the house. Dried-out gum trees are slowly consumed by remnants of fire. Old tree trunks are burning.

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Not far from the home, flames slowly eat away at the stable, until it’s little more than a heap of crumpled iron.

With it goes the 120 hay bales Laurence was using to feed his mares and two dozen head of cattle.

“I’ve been stockpiling to save starving animals,” he says. “Now I’ve got starving animals and no feed.”

The house is encircled by evidence of disaster but, miraculously, it has survived.

“Well, what can you do, we’re alive,” Claire says. “We’ve got a house. Not a lot of fencing left.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Laurence and Claire Cowie celebrate defending their home. Photograph: Mike Bowers/The Guardian

She scouts the paddocks for her mares. It doesn’t take her long. They’re alive and well, placid now the worst has passed.

Christopher Knaus (@knausc) Everything around Laurence and Claire Cowie's property is blackened. The wind is still fierce but it's now eerily quiet. The only things burning are old tree trunks and large logs. We can see the mountains to the west, just. Laurence is having a beer. #bushfires @_LisaMCox pic.twitter.com/v1ux3S5NuN

An hour later we’re sitting on the porch, looking out to the mountains in the west and watching the ruined stable smoulder.

The Rural Fire Service radio blares away in the background. Each voice tells of another looming emergency, somewhere else between Bredbo and Michelago.

But here, at least, it’s over.

“Well, I’ll probably sleep well tonight,” Laurence says, ice-cold beer in hand.