Meanwhile, her family in Dunedin are anxiously following events from afar, saying the tense situation had left them "a bit tearful".
"We’re safe, we’re fine, totally good," Amanda Sharpe said in a telephone interview from a campground near the border of Victoria and New South Wales
"We’re all a bit nervous but we’re safe, all together."
Mrs Sharpe (nee Elder), formerly of Riversdale, Southland, lives in Melbourne these days with her husband Matt.
Narooma is on the coast, about 500kms north-east of Melbourne.
Mrs Sharpe (40) said she felt safe, because a nearby beach provided a place of safe retreat for her husband and herself and other young members of their extended family.
Camp organisers had also been helpful and were dealing with matters well.
An unexpected irony of the fire season is that her husband Matt Sharpe works for Fire Rescue Australia.
This firm provides specialised fire rescue safety equipment, including self-contained breathing apparatus, for firefighters and others.
Mrs Sharpe said the sky had become darker than usual, it was "quite dark", and visible smoke had limited visibility.
They had checked on the fire situation before leaving Melbourne and matters were safe at that stage—"unfortunately things changed later".
She had been looking forward to a planned 80s-style retro clothing evening to celebrate the New Year, but those plans had now been scrapped.
She had to cut short the phone call from New Zealand to conserve her cellphone power, given the power outage at the camping ground.
Amanda’s stepfather, Wayne Parsons, said he and Amanda’s mother, Mary Elder, both of Dunedin, had been feeling nervous, and he had been feeling "a bit tearful" because of the tense situation with the fires.
