Bushfires had been burning in the shrub to the north, south and west of the city for some time and the smoke turned the sun a stormy red.

I was worried about my husband as he had recently been discharged from hospital with an amputated thumb joint. And he was a *bushy*(bush man) from way back and a bush firefighter, so he had been very restless when I had left him that morning.

While I was trying to get home I heard on the radio that the fire had jumped the river and started to burn towards houses on the Eastern shore. Most of the fire crews were trying to contain the westerly blaze which destroyed homes and lives all along the Huon River. As I listened I prayed for those who were in the path of the fire .

My husband had been called out by the local policeman and had been asked to go and evacuate the houses in peril in the hills above our home. Of course he didn't tell him that he had just got out of hospital.

He told me what happened next when I finally got home.

He had gone to one farmhouse, isolated at the end of a bush track and told the two old ladies to get out and walk down the road to Claremont. They started off, then one lady recalled she had left her purse on the kitchen table. He saw she was flustered and offered to go back for her and get the purse, even although he knew he shouldn't have! As he looked out the kitchen window he saw a wall of flame headed for the house. The only safe place he saw was an old tin shed.

Luckily there were hessian bags and a water trough outside.He dunked the bags and went to the centre of the shed and covered himself with the sopping wet hessian. He said the heat of the fire front was tremendous and he wondered if he would survive. The house went up in flames. He was trapped in the shed for about 4 hours then he was able to get out. Later he learned one lady had paniced and tried to run across the paddocks and was burnt to death. The other lady ran down the track to the rescue centre.

I realised later my prayers may have saved him and others. You never know do you? By the time I got home he had rebandaged his hand, let the dogs and chooks out of the yard and hosed the fence down...although we lost it when the wind changed. But others lost homes and lives that terrible day of wildfires.