CANS of beer and one man's bravery helped save a Dunalley home from bushfires.
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When residents were told to evacuate from the Dunalley Hotel to a Nubeena refuge centre, Tim Moss, 32, decided he would go to his mother and stepfather's home to see what he could do.
"There was no real threat yet, it was just a bit of smoke coming over the hill, but it comes so fast," Mr Moss said.
"I'm out the back hosing ... then the helicopters were bombing, and then you see this massive orange glow coming over the hill.
"I didn't really know what I was getting myself into ... someone said it was 58 degrees in a fire truck somewhere."
Mr Moss said he used cartons of beer that were salvaged from a shed to save Glenda and Dennis McIntyre's eight-year-old fire-threatened home.
Initially Mr Moss, his friend Phil Deverell, 65, and 13-year-old son Toby Langlois-Deverell, helped to drag out a caravan, a boat and a tractor from the sheds that surrounded the home.
Thick smoke and intense heat led Mr Deverell and his son to leave, but Mr Moss wanted to stay.
He initially relied on a generator and a pump, but as he hosed down flames the hose joiner broke.
He said he watched the pump burn.
"I've looked around and saw (a neighbour's) house with 10 or 15-metre flames out the top. When I saw Al's house on fire, I thought there is no turning back, this is really bad," he said.
With no water, the only thing Mr Moss had to put out the fire were a few cartons of beer and a container filled with soft drinks and stubbies.
Mr Moss said he ran around the shed trying to dampen flames with the beer.
Mr Moss said he extinguished a front door mat that had caught alight, and continually put out spot fires that threatened the wooden verandah floors and posts.
Mr Moss said he was acting on adrenaline.
"You just don't worry, you can't worry," he said.
"You don't think you just do whatever - you would rather die on your feet than on your knees."