04:00

Former journalist Peter Logue and former diplomat Zena Armstrong were at home at Coolagolite outside Cobargo early this morning, “dithering about what to do” according to Logue.

“Then we got a phone call from a local farmer, a long term resident, at about 4.30am and he just said ‘Get out now’, so we left, and as we went outside the red glow was right behind the house, that was the fire that came over the back of us and swept through into Cobargo.”



Their children and a guest found a way to drive through to Canberra. Logue and Armstrong drove to the coast to Bermagui to help defend the home of Armstrong’s mother and step father.



“The RFS and the police were driving around the streets of Bermagui with a loud speaker saying ‘evacuate now, evacuate now’. It was dark like night time and raining burning embers and leaves.

“We evacuated the oldies down to the beach, and then we went back to try to prepare the house...but then the weather changed, the fire started its own weather system, it went from hot wind to really cold, and it started raining..and in the end the fire front didn’t eventuate.”



Logue spoke to Guardian Australia from Bermagui beach where the RFS had just given a briefing at the surf life savers’ club.

“The whole south coast water treatment system is down so we have to boil water, Woolworths is packed with people buying water and emergency supplies, the cafes are all closed because they’ve run out of food, and there’s only one way out to Narooma, but you can’t get any further than there.”



Logue and Armstrong don’t know if there home is still standing. The fire has destroyed much of Cobargo and two residents are missing, in what could be “potential fatalities” according to RFS commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons.

Both Logue and Armstrong are musicians, organisers of the Cobargo folk festival. They have saved their musical instruments, half a dozen bottles of Clonakilla and a bottle of good Irish whisky.



“We are staying here for now,” Logue said. “It looks like a refugee camp down here at the beach, a yuppie refugee camp, with horse floats and people staying in their cars.”