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Rugby league legend Ron Coote has lost his home of 35 years in the bushfires and his wife was forced to jump in Lake Conjola to escape the flames.
The 75-year-old rugby great battled with hoses and water from his swimming pool to try and save his home on New Year’s Eve, to no avail.
He said the fire was moving at lightning fast speed and there was little he could do.
His wife, Robin and their daughter and a couple of friends ran down to the lake and made a split-second decision to jump in.
“We got down onto the pontoon and the flames were there, it was really scary … and I jumped in. It was daytime, but it was black — everything was black,” Mrs Coote told the Today Show.
“It (the fire) just moved that quick ... it was just flying up the trees.
“We couldn’t last much longer because as we were swimming to get to the other side of the lake the fire kept crawling up the other side … so that made it further and we never seemed to get to the end of it.”
In the end Mrs Coote was saved by a passer-by on a jet ski after spending about an hour in the lake.
Mr Coote said the fire started up on the highway, about 2.5km from his home.
“It happened so quickly, all of a sudden on top of us," he said. "We were defending there, we had fire hoses, pumps and had to use the water out of the swimming pool, then it got up into the eaves of those house … then she went up mate."
His daughter's house, next door, was also lost destroyed, along with 50 other homes in Lake Conjola, on the NSW south coast.
Mr Coote, a former Australian representative rugby league player who played for South Sydney and the Eastern Suburbs, lost everything.
“It's a bit daunting of a morning when you get up and you have no clothes to put on,” he said.
“We used to get up and go to the drawer to put something on and away you'd go, but unfortunately that's happened.
Rugby league legend Ron Coote has lost his home of 35 years in the bushfires and his wife was forced to jump in Lake Conjola to escape the flames.
The 75-year-old rugby great battled with hoses and water from his swimming pool to try and save his home on New Year’s Eve, to no avail.
He said the fire was moving at lightning fast speed and there was little he could do.
His wife, Robin and their daughter and a couple of friends ran down to the lake and made a split-second decision to jump in.
“We got down onto the pontoon and the flames were there, it was really scary … and I jumped in. It was daytime, but it was black — everything was black,” Mrs Coote told the Today Show.
“It (the fire) just moved that quick ... it was just flying up the trees.
“We couldn’t last much longer because as we were swimming to get to the other side of the lake the fire kept crawling up the other side … so that made it further and we never seemed to get to the end of it.”
In the end Mrs Coote was saved by a passer-by on a jet ski after spending about an hour in the lake.
Mr Coote said the fire started up on the highway, about 2.5km from his home.
“It happened so quickly, all of a sudden on top of us," he said. "We were defending there, we had fire hoses, pumps and had to use the water out of the swimming pool, then it got up into the eaves of those house … then she went up mate."
His daughter's house, next door, was also lost destroyed, along with 50 other homes in Lake Conjola, on the NSW south coast.
Mr Coote, a former Australian representative rugby league player who played for South Sydney and the Eastern Suburbs, lost everything.
“It's a bit daunting of a morning when you get up and you have no clothes to put on,” he said.
“We used to get up and go to the drawer to put something on and away you'd go, but unfortunately that's happened.
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