FIONA WILLAN, REPORTER: This is what’s left of Siew Lee Seow’s dream home. She had lived there for three years along with her beloved cats, Sassy, Bodhi and Pixie.
SIEW LEE SEOW: So during COVID a lot of people abandoned their pets when they left. So I rescued them, and I said, I will give you a good life, but I trapped them.
FIONA WILLAN: In Sydney for a medical appointment, she had no idea her town was on fire.
Her cats were inside the house at Koolewong with the air conditioning on. She realised what was happening when she checked her security cameras remotely.
SIEW LEE SEOW: And I saw the neighbours running and then I saw the constable running out my driveway and then he yelled then all my cameras went offline.
By the time I could get one camera to work and I had already seen, it was some orangey thing that reflected off the rocks and I was like, what is that?
FIONA WILLAN: As the bushfire raged Siew Lee Seow made her way back but wasn’t allowed near her home until firefighters escorted her there the following day.
SIEW LEE SEOW: I just screamed and I just screamed, and I just screamed, I just screamed. I was still hopeful, I was like? Pixie, Bodhi come back, I’m here now and I just screamed.
FIONA WILLAN: She found one of her cats, hiding under her neighbour’s house. It’s in hospital with life threatening injuries.
SIEW LEE SEOW: Sassy tried so hard, she broke through, and she cut her nose up to kind of break through whatever mesh or glass to get through and then I just thought no-one was helping her because it just came so quick.
FIONA WILLAN: Siew Lee returns here every day hoping the other two cats will come home. A Singaporean migrant, they’re her only family here.
It’s been four days and so far, there’s no sign.
SIEW LEE SEOW: I was so angry at myself, I was so angry, I was like, I trapped the cats in. I thought I was giving them air con.
FIONA WILLAN: Siew Lee had to rebuild her life after overcoming thyroid cancer and will now have to rebuild her home which she fears is under-insured.
SIEW LEE SEOW: I was shattered. Ten years of feeling and I sat there and thinking I don’t know how to pick my pieces up.
FIONA WILLAN: Tim Taylor lives on a nearby street and believes many will have the same problem with insurance.
TIM TAYLOR: We’re all probably underinsured a bit too much, so that’s going to be the hard part too for a lot of people.
FIONA WILLAN: And is that because of the area you live in that you are underinsured. It is just one of those tricky….
TIM TAYLOR: Just building prices have gone up so much over the years that it goes up. You put it up a few per cent every year, but it’s been going up 30 per cent, 40 per cent.
FIONA WILLAN: His house is still standing – but his neighbours are not.
TIM TAYLOR: Over here is just house wipe out, house wipe out.
FIONA WILLAN: He believes his would be gone too if he hadn’t been running late to meet friends on Saturday.
TIM TAYLOR: Had I have left, there’s no way we’d still be standing.
FIONA WILLAN: As flames spread along the railway near his property, Tim sprayed down his home with the hose.
TIM TAYLOR: It’s just spotted in here and that’s where it’s took off from, straight in here and it’s just gone.
FIONA WILLAN: Tim fled, believing he’d never see his house again.
TIM TAYLOR: It went from complacency and within ten minutes everything was up, and it was bolt for your life. It was quick. It was properly quick.
FIONA WILLAN: He won’t be able to move back home until the area has been cleared of asbestos and dangerous trees.
Oohna Knight and her daughter Amity moved to Koolewong just 11 weeks ago.
AMITY KNIGHT: Mum rang me and said, “Amity, what do you want out of the house?” I said, I don’t know, teddy, get my teddy! I don’t know, like birth certificate.
OOHNA KNIGHT: That was really amazing to experience like what do you grab because we’d just moved here, I was, I hadn’t really thought about a fire plan.
FIONA WILLAN: Waterbombers helped save their home and those of her neighbours but Oohna stayed up overnight hosing down six trees that remained on fire.
Days later, they’re still keeping watch as logs smoulder near their backyard.
OOHNA KNIGHT: It’s still burning and all these dry leaves are just surrounding it. Until it’s really really out and all the little embers are out then you can relax because anything can happen.
FIONA WILLAN: Meanwhile in Tasmania hundreds were forced to flee near St Helens on the upper east coast yesterday.
At least two properties have been lost as authorities continue to battle the blaze.
DAVID CASTELLER, TAS. FIRE SERVICE: The crews faced really challenging conditions last night. Wind was very strong and erratic, and crews on the ground have done a fantastic job to limit that damage to two houses. It could’ve been a lot worse.
FIONA WILLAN: Further South at Dolphin Sands residents and property owners have been permitted to return after a fire destroyed 19 homes on the weekend.
Tony McGuire was one of the first to build in the area decades ago.
TONY MCGUIRE: Very difficult to take it all in, you see push bikes with virtually nothing left on them not even a skerrick of paint.
FIONA WILLAN: Heatwave conditions are expected to continue across much of Australia this week sparking fears of further fires.
SIEW LEE SEOW: You never think it happens to you. I was just shocked, and I was just, how am I going to fix this?
