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| This was the moment when mum and I evacuated |
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| Donated hay to feed the stock |
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| Still burning three days after the main fire went through |
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| My eldest nephew was a tower of strength |
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| Mum takes it all in |
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| The dogs cool off in a burnt stock trough |
We are back on the road once again after spending two weeks in Victoria helping my parents get back on their feet.
At approximately 1am on Saturday, 18 January fire burnt my parents' 560 acre property near the Grampians, coming within two feet of the house and sheds. The only thing that saved the house was Colourbond 'durasteel' cladding that they'd installed in the middle of 2013.
I arrived at the farm on Thursday, 16 January following a dangerous heatwave and less than 24 hours later, at 2pm on Friday, my mother and I evacuated to my sister's house in Horsham.
My dad refused to believe that the farm was in any danger, despite constant CFA warnings, and stayed. A move that nearly cost him his life. The smoke alarm woke him at 1am Saturday morning and he looked out to see an 8ft wall of flame outside his bedroom window.
Ill-prepared, he had time to shut the window, pull on some shorts and run out of the house to his ute, leaving behind shoes, shirt, wallet, glasses and even his false teeth! He drove through flames to their front gate and took off down a back way as trees ignited the roadside next to him.
I woke at 1.30am in my youngest nephew's bed to hear his voice say, "The farm's gone."
My mum, who was in the twin bed next to me, jumped up and I quickly followed.
My eldest nephew had let him in and I've never seen my father in such a state, and hope to never again. He was understandably in shock and even though he was convinced he'd lost everything, he was most worried about the neighbours who were in front of his property. "They had nowhere to go. They would've had to drive into the fire," he said.
That night none of us slept. Our combined six dogs were restless and noisy. We went through the motions of going to bed, but I was still awake when I heard my dad say to my mum in the room next door, "I guess rural life isn't all it's cracked up to be."
It was a relief when daylight came. Dad was dressed in the clothes mum had packed him as part of her fire plan, while she went up the street to buy him some shoes suitable for walking around a burnt property. I sat down and started making lists for them labelled 'urgent', 'need to do', 'follow-up', 'maybe important'.
I didn't envy them when they finally left to try and get back to the farm and see what remained. It reminded me of a comment one bloke made after Black Saturday in 2009: "It's like you're sitting in a dentist's waiting room, not sure if he's going to do a routine clean or rip all the bastards out."
Two hours after they left, dad called the house using my mobile phone to say it was still standing, and so were the sheds. We were stunned. Even more of a miracle was all their stock (sheep) survived. Dad thinks it was because they'd been going to this one treed area for the past three months and all of their excrement must have chemically treated the ground. That ground and the house and sheds were the only two acres out of 560 acres not to burn. Mum's garden was gone, all the fencing, even the property sign Eagle Downs had burnt to the ground.
So now I'm back in South Australia on the coast to escape the cinders while the fencing contractors get to work on Eagle Downs. The neighbours survived, as did their house, thanks to four CFA trucks. Last count, 32 homes were destroyed by those fires. The inferno became so big it created it's own weather pattern and nobody was safe with it changing direction every few minutes and spot fires flaring up to 9km ahead of it.
While mum and dad are thanking their lucky stars, I think this is making them reassess their priorities. They may move, they may stay, it's too early for a decision like that. Whatever they do, I hope the rest of 2014 is drama free.
