Bridgetown bushfires: Resident recalls dramatic moment inferno began barrelling towards house

It was an ordinary Saturday afternoon for Norton Schmidt-Hunt and his family before things turned south drastically when a bushfire began moving towards his Bridgetown home at lightning pace. While the majority of his neighbours, and Bridgetown, began their evacuation of the lower South West town, he chose to stay and try to defend his property. Mr Schmidt-Hunt said the first thing he did when he saw the initial smoke and flames coming over the hills to the north east of his home was go to a friend’s house and collect a fire fighting trailer to prepare if the fire came any closer. He said as the situation unfolded in front of him he thought this could be a long battle against the fire. “I just thought this could be pretty hectic but I was not too concerned,” he said. Mr Schmidt-Hunt said it was “lucky” the wind changed just as the blaze began roaring in the hills immediately adjacent to his property, which carried the fire away from his home and in a more Southerly direction. He said it took all of 10 minutes to engulf the numerous trees and fields he overlooks from his veranda and the flames got within 100m of his fence line. “It has already changed my perspective about putting fire breakers at the property, it was just crazy to see,” he said. Not only did he defend his own home, but Mr Schmidt-Hunt also took the time to run a generator to a friend’s house to help them also fight the bushfire. He said he wanted to try and help as many people around him as he could during the situation and was amazed at the work of the volunteers who themselves left their houses to fight the blaze.