Audio: Gary Hughes on his escape

They warn you that it comes fast, but the word fast doesn’t come anywhere near describing it.

It comes at you like a runaway train. One minute you are preparing. The next you are fighting for your home. Then you are fighting for your life. But it is not minutes that come between; it’s more like seconds. The firestorm moves faster than you can think, let alone react.

For 25 years we had lived on our hilltop in St Andrews, in the hills northeast of Melbourne. You prepare, like they tell you every summer. You clear, you slash, you prime your fire pump. For 25 years fires were something seen in the distance. Until Saturday.

We had been watching the vast plume of smoke from the fire near Kilmore all afternoon, secure in the knowledge it was too far away to pose a danger. Then suddenly there is smoke and flames across the valley, about a kilometre to the northwest, being driven towards us by the wind.

I rush around the side of the house to start the petrol-powered fire pump to begin spraying the house, just in case. When I get there, I suddenly see flames rushing towards the house from the west. The tongues of flame are in our front paddock, racing up the hill towards us across grass stubble I thought safe because it had been slashed.

In the seconds it takes me to register the flames, they are into a small stand of trees 50 metres from the house. Heat and embers drive at me like an open blast furnace. I run to shelter inside, like they tell you, until the fire front passes.

Inside are my wife, a 13-year-old girl we care for, and a menagerie of animals “rescued” over the year by our veterinary-student daughter.

They call it “ember attack”. Those words don’t do it justice. It is a fiery hailstorm from Hell driving relentlessly at you. The wind and flying embers explore, like claws of a predator, every tiny gap in the house. Embers are blowing through the cracks around the closed doors and windows.

We frantically wipe at them with wet towels. We are fighting for all we own. We still have hope.

The house begins to fill with smoke. The smoke alarms start to scream. The smoke gets thicker.

I go outside to see if the fire front has passed. One of our two cars under a carport is burning. I rush inside to get keys for the second and reverse it out into an open area in front of the house to save it.

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