Malua Bay fire: survivors tell how 1,000 people lived through a night of flames on NSW beach

The whole town crowded on to the beach on the NSW south coast 'trying to keep out of the smoke and ash'

The beach at Malua Bay is shadowed at both ends by headlands. As bushfire spread to the precipice of the cliffs on Tuesday, more than 1,000 people stood on the beach, hemmed in by a ring of fire and the Pacific Ocean.

"Everyone was on the beach, just covered in ash and smoke," Al Baxter, the former Wallaby, told Guardian Australia.