Mallacoota is a tourist town in Victoria, Australia, some 500km (310 miles) east of Melbourne.
Around 1,000 people live there, but the population swells at Christmas, as Australians head to the coast to enjoy their holidays,
But on Tuesday morning - as bushfires swept the region - thousands of people fled to the beach for a different reason: safety.
People in the town woke up to thick smoke and pale, orange skies. But as the fires drew closer, the sky turned red.
At 8am a warning siren sounded, telling people to head to the water. By 9.30am, the sky was "pitch black".
"We were bracing for the worst because, it was black," David Jeffrey told the BBC. "Like it should have been daylight and it was black like midnight. And we could hear the fire roaring."