I thought I didn't need a bushfire plan, then my house almost burnt down

You never think it will happen to you. Until it does.

And then, like me, you might find yourself woefully underprepared.

It was December 6, an ordinary Saturday afternoon in Koolewong on the NSW Central Coast. My husband Jake was hanging washing on our balcony when he looked up to see the hill beside our house totally engulfed in flames.

Firefighters arrived as we rushed our two young kids, dog, important documents and box of memories into the car. 

The house three doors down from ours had no chance – it went up like a box of matches at frightening speed. If that wasn’t intimidating enough, I caught my breath at a series of loud explosions.

Our first sighting of fire was around 12.40pm. By about 12.57pm we were told it was our last chance to leave. 

That’s 15, maybe 20 minutes at most, between not being aware of any fire in the area to fleeing for our lives. And I can tell you that time goes fast.

We drove away from our house over lawns to avoid a fallen tree across the road. 

We spotted fire directly behind our neighbour’s house, and in that moment, we felt sure ours was lost. 

We soon saw the horrifying footage of how the fire that started just doors down from us had jumped over the hill and ruthlessly consumed 16 houses on the next street over from ours.

It jumped again – one kilometre across water – to cause grave danger in the Woy Woy Bay area. All in a couple of hours.

Maybe, we thought then, our home was safe. But that night we watched helplessly as fire took off in the hills again, this time on the other side of our house.

Several sleepless nights followed as firefighters battled to get the main fires under control, alongside the spot fires that kept popping up. Finally, on Wednesday night, our street was given the all-clear to come home. 

On Thursday morning a small reignition occurred in the area – enough to keep a frazzled community on high alert. It is going to be a long bushfire season for those traumatised by this disaster.

We feel immense gratitude for the brave firefighters who saved our home, spending days holding back the flames between our house and the bush in unbearable 41-degree heat.

But the good fortune and relief I feel at our home being unscathed are tempered by the great sadness that it came at the expense of others who have lost everything and had even more frightening escapes. If the wind had blown the other way, it would be us.

And now, I’m telling anyone who will listen that they need an exact and detailed bushfire plan that covers multiple scenarios.

I don’t believe any fire plan could have saved those houses that were lost. I’m certain many of their residents were far more prepared than we were, but the fire was too intense and too fast – with strong winds pushing it along at terrifying speeds.

But knowing exactly what to do could one day save your life.

I can already see the comments this story is bound to attract about how stupid I must be – of course I need a fire plan, I live in a wooden house backing onto the bush. 

I can’t really argue with that. 

But I’m sure I’m not the only one who has believed a plan of “just grab the important stuff and get out” is enough. 

I always subconsciously thought that a detailed bushfire plan was more for remote rural land owners who want to stay and fight, than suburban dwellings with easy and fast access to fire stations.

Our course of action/evacuation would be obvious – you see fire, you leave from whichever entrance is furthest away from the flames, I thought.

But this experience definitely exposed areas of unpreparedness. 

We did dial 000 and get the kids out of the house fast, but then we argued about what to do next.

I wanted Jake to take the kids to safety immediately, while I stayed behind with my mum to try to do what we could for our house until we were told to go. Jake refused to leave without me.

We took up precious time deliberating things like where to put our barbecue gas cylinder.

When the fire liaison at first agreed it was OK to stay and start wetting down, I still didn’t know exactly what to do to help protect my house, or what order to do it in.

Perhaps of most concern to me is that I later found out the neighbour most in peril didn’t know the fire was there until the explosions in the burning house next door started. After getting my own kids out, alerting others should have been the next priority. Calling the street’s WhatsApp group was inadequate. 

I had felt relatively calm and in control up until the point we were told it was our last chance to leave. 

After evacuating to my parents’ house nearby, I paced the living room and cried, angry at myself, believing that if our house was lost, it would be my fault for not being efficient enough to finish our preparations.

I’ve since accepted that while I could have done more to defend my home from embers, and there is more we should do to generally prepare for the fire season, in so many ways our house is undefendable from a serious fire front. 

The Rural Fire Service is clear – even if we were prepared in every other way, it is not safe to stay during a fire if there is an extreme fire danger rating and your home is not specifically designed or constructed to withstand bushfires. Our older wooden house almost certainly is not.

So there is no plan that means my house is completely fire-safe. But plans covering general bushfire season maintenance, what to do on extreme fire days or when there is a fire in the area, and what to do in varying levels of emergency, can give my house – and, more importantly, my family – the best chance of survival.

While living in a home backing onto the bush significantly increases my chances of being affected by bushfire, ultimately fires can reach anyone. 

Some of the houses lost in this tragedy were several streets removed from the bush. That they found themselves in the path of the fire while my riskier house was spared is just cruel fate.

Anybody who lives in Australia should be fully educated and prepared.