Four people sheltered in the bathroom of a house, with two pet sheep, sharing an oxygen tank as a firestorm raged around them.
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It is an incredible story of survival, but this is how Toby Rixon-Gosch lived through the Badja Forest Road fire when it arrived at Wandella and Yowrie and destroyed the home of himself, his partner Nicole Bailey and their five-year-old daughter Layla.
Mr Rixon-Gosch was with his father John Gosch and his sister's boyfriend at Mr Gosch's house in Yowrie, north-west of Cobargo, when early in the morning on New Year's Eve they heard a neighbour, aged in her 70s, calling for help.
"She wanted to go, but she refused to leave without her favourite sheep," Ms Bailey said.
"The boys went up there and had to wrestle this huge sheep into the back of the car."
"It took the three of us to lift it!" Mr Rixon-Gosch, 22, added.
"She kept saying 'we can't leave George behind'."
Along with this prized ram and a lamb named Jenny they returned to Mr Gosch's house. Later on they would find out the neighbour's 50-odd flock of sheep that remained at the property, as well as her house, were all wiped out by the blaze.
But that night it was heating up at Mr Gosch's house.
The firestorm had become intense and had destroyed all the family's cars, leaving them stranded in the house.
"It was horrendous," Mr Rixon-Gosch said.
"Cars were blowing up, windows were smashing, gas bottles were blowing up."
"He was ringing me when it was coming through and they thought they were dead," Ms Bailey added.
The air was thick with smoke, but fortunately Mr Gosch had thought to bring in a bottle of oxygen that he used for welding - just in case.
"I had the oxygen in there as a last resort and I'm thankful we did," Mr Gosch said.
"The air was that full of smoke you just couldn't breathe.
"I was prepared to an extent, but we were only prepared for spot fires, not for a fireball."
When the fire front had passed them, they found part of Mr Gosch's house had been destroyed as well as his land and two sheds, and as they did not have a car they were stranded in the blackened landscape.
"We got stuck out there for two days and didn't see anyone," Mr Rixon-Gosch said.
"We just sat around and drank a lot of beer!
"A couple of days later one of our mates turned up with a car, so we were able to borrow his other car."
Ms Bailey, 21, had helped prepare the family's properties then waited out the fire front in Narooma with Layla and said it was hard to hear her and her partner's house had been lost.
"When Toby told me I was devastated," she said.
"But by the time I came out here I knew what to expect and just wanted to get back into it, fix the fence and get the animals fed."
They run a hobby farm at their Wandella property and Ms Bailey said it was a "miracle" to learn all their animals had survived, but only an outbuilding and the cubby house remained unburnt.
"Layla is happy her cubby house is still standing," Ms Bailey said.
"For the first few days she was upset and zombie-like, but she's bounced back and is her normal self again."
Since the fire, the young family has been living in a tent on their property, but the community has come together around them and are helping them build a cabin to live in before they get started on building a house.
"Then we will try and get back to normal again," Ms Bailey said.
A GoFundMe account has been set up to support the building of a home for Mr Rixon-Gosch and Ms Bailey, details can be found by clicking here.
A page has also been set up for Mr Gosch's neighbour, with details here.