Residents recount watching helplessly as devastating blaze tore through homes in Koolewong: ‘just tragic’

A fast-moving fire tore through waterfront homes with such pace residents could only look on in horror.

The blaze broke out and rapidly spread from home to home the small town of Koolewong, on the Central Coast of NSW, on Saturday.

WATCH THE VIDEO ABOVE: Central Coast bushfire destroys homes

While firefighters were fought throughout the night to gain control of the fire, a dozen residents returned on Sunday morning to find their homes completely destroyed.

Footage taken from the scene showed cars burnt to a crisp while homes were reduced to rubble and still smoldering.

One local, Mark Stringfellow, told 7NEWS he and his wife were alerted to the fire bearing down on their home by friends who lived across the water.

“I went outside and there was a stack of smoke,” he said.

Stringfellow’s home was luckily saved by the direction of the wind, giving him time to rescue his 90-year-old neighbour from her home.

Returning to try and extinguish spot fires in his backyard, a sudden change of winds surround his home in fire and suddenly placed him in danger.

“I was calling Triple-0 but unfortunately no fire truck could get up the access road,” he said.

“Once it spread below us I knew there was no stopping it, so that’s when we left.”

Springfellow joined his neighbours at a nearby park as they helplessly watched the fire spread.

“We assumed out place had burned for sure,” he said.

“We had neighbours who were watching their house burn down at the railway line, it was just tragic.”

Miraculously, Springfellow’s home was one of four houses on his street that survived “basically untouched”.

More than 250 firefighters arrived to tackle the blaze at its peak, NSW RFS Commissioner Trent Curtin said on Sunday.

However, the fire is “yet to be controlled” after burning through more than 120 hectares of the Koolewong Reserve.

Curtin holds concerns for the small town as erratic southerly winds and high temperatures are expected throughout the day.

A Watch and Act order is in place for residents and those near Woy Woy Bay Rd and Phegans Bay.

“Stay alert and monitor your surroundings,” NSW RFS said.

“If you stayed to defend your property monitor both inside and outside for small fires and burning embers.”

NSW Premier Chris Minns said it is one of the 76 fires burning across the state and one of 20 which remain uncontained.

He said more than 1500 emergency services personnel, including firefighters and police, worked through the night to try and gain control of the fires.