Fire ringed Wye River's hills and tore through its homes in smoky darkness on Christmas Day and seven-year-old Pema was scared.
Huddled in the local surf-lifesaving club in the Great Ocean Road town, she was one of 10 people who stayed behind to run the community centre.
"The scariest bit was when the man came in and said, 'OK, everybody, get your mask on and your goggles on and get ready'. That was scary," Pema told AAP on Tuesday.
That happened three times that night as the blaze destroyed 98 homes.
Everyone in the surf club had to number off to make sure no one was missing.
Christine Shaw has been coming to Wye River for many years and was a community volunteer helping to evacuate residents from the area.
She was bunkered down in the club with Pema, her brother Juna and their mother as they watched nearby houses burn to the ground.
"What was obviously tough for them was her dad was out fighting the fire," Ms Shaw said.
Katrina Blake and Ms Shaw helped tourists leave earlier in the day, and then it was their job to keep the base of operations running at the surf club.
"We were never fearful for our lives, I think we felt very safe here," Ms Blake said.
"But (we were) fearful it was going to come down and collect more than it already had.
"At 1am the wind just became this amazing destructive thing, it was swirling and really, really unpredictable.
"We had fire guys coming in to rest and they're just going `it's mad out there'."
The final escape plan to run into the ocean didn't have to be used once the rain hit at 3am.
The crew hasn't left Wye River since Christmas Day and has been using campers' leftover food to feed hundreds of firefighters.
It's given Pema time to finish her book about the fires.
"It's all about what happened, everything," she said.
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