[2] It is a popular holiday spot for boating, fishing, walking the wilderness coast, swimming, birdwatching, and surfing.

[7] The Sydney Swans' 2005 premiership winning defender and former St Kilda player Sean Dempster hails from Mallacoota.

[citation needed] [9] On the late afternoon of 28 December, a lightning strike near Wingan River started a bushfire which burned southward towards the coast, roughly 40 km away despite mild conditions and little wind.

Three Country Fire Authority (CFA) strike teams, about 95 volunteer firefighters with 18 tankers and three command vehicles, were sent to the town immediately after the fire started on 28 December to assist the local CFA brigade and other emergency services, they arrived in the town early night the same day.

Local emergency services estimated 10,000 people were in the town at the time the CFA strike teams arrived, including up to 2,000 residents.

At 1:00 pm on 29 December a "watch and act" notified residents it was too late to leave, stranding thousands in town after the Princes Highway to Melbourne was closed.

At 8:34 pm on 29 December the roads to Melbourne were reopened but the emergency warnings continued to advise people in the township it was safest to stay.

A southwest wind change pushed the fire through the Croajingolong National Park towards the town, roughly 60 km from the point of ignition within a few hours during the early hours of 31 December as a control line could not be established by Fire Management Victoria due to rough terrain and aircraft suppression was also unsuccessful the previous two days.

At approximately 8:00 am on 31 December a firestorm reached the industrial area of the township with the fire-front itself estimated to have been around 10 km wide, to which the CFA responded.

Many areas of the town were cut off from direct access due to active fires, including Mirrabooka Road and Lakeside Drive.

In the early hours of the morning of 1 January thick smoke engulfed the town resulting in a panicked community seeking medical assistance and evacuation.

The CFA strike teams (personnel only) were extracted by air around mid-day on 1 January as fresh replacements could safely be deployed at “shift-change”.

On 3 January it commenced the large civil evacuation due to hundreds of kilometres of the damaged road preventing access to Mallacoota and surrounding towns.

The Australia Day weekend provided an opportunity for campers and visitors to return in convoys to collect their belongings, but were required to leave immediately.

Unusually warm winter temperatures can be caused by the foehn effect, which typically occurs on the region's coastal plains.