Irish man’s bush-fire escape: ‘Will I let the fire take me or the jellyfish?’

An Irish mother has opened up about the ordeal she endured regarding her son Oisín who had a narrow escape from blazing Australian bush fires in ravaged Mallacoota.

Catherine Sutton Brady’s son went camping in Mallacoota last weekend with eight friends.

She said “they never got an alert to leave because the authorities didn’t see how fast it [the fire] was coming. Luckily he his friend Ryley were the first to evacuate to the water. He said without the volunteer firefighters they would all be dead. They stopped defending property and just stood in a ring on the beach to defend them from fire coming towards them.”

She said when the fire was approaching Oisín he could hear gas bottles exploding in surrounding properties and caravans.

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Ms Sutton Brady told Opinion Line on Cork’s 96FM that her son and his pals were told to get in the water and submerge. Amid the drama Oisín had his own medical concerns: “Oisín has an anaphylactic reaction to jellyfish and he could see the water was full of them. All he could think was, ‘will I let the fire take me or the jellyfish take me?’ ”

Ms Sutton Brady added that her son told her “before the fire came to him . . . it went completely black. He said the other thing is that given it was a bush fire you expect it to be hot, but they were absolutely freezing; they were shivering. It was quite a surreal experience and one they will never forget.”

She said he can laugh about it now having been saved by the Royal Australian navy which is rescuing hundreds of people from Mallacoota in Victoria.

The navy had to launch the seaborne evacuation of people trapped in the southeastern town as Australia braces itself for even hotter weather and more bush fires. High temperatures and strong winds are forecast for the weekend, leading to what officials call “widespread extreme fire damage”.

More than 13,300 homes have been destroyed in the extended bush-fire crisis during which at least 20 people have been killed while dozens are missing.