On the outskirts of Yarck, a small farming town in central Victoria, the ground is still smouldering. Gumtrees flicker with flames as white ash whips through the air. Across the region, houses are reduced to warped steel, with brick chimneys often the only things left standing.
Dave Rigby, a resident who saved his home, described the terrifying moment the fire hit. “I was actually preparing to leave at 10am yesterday. I went down the street to talk to my neighbours, they had just gone to leave, but by that time, you just couldn’t get out. All the roads were cut,” he said. Rigby and five neighbours fought the blaze with bore water and a generator, saving several homes. “It was calm, calm, calm, and then just hectic,” he added.
At least 300 structures have been destroyed, including 80 homes, with 350,000 hectares burnt. One person died, their body found about 100 metres from a vehicle off Yarck Road at Gobur. Kathy Munslow, who runs the Gunyah Animal Healing Sanctuary, returned to find many animals injured and hungry. “The animals are standing in smouldering paddocks and the fence is still burning. The only thing standing here is my house, which the CFA saved because the fire came within three inches on all sides. Everything else is gone,” she said.
Chris Charman, keeping the local pub running, lost his own house but focused on others. “So many houses, and so many farms are gone. No one actually knows how bad it is. So many livestock are dead,” he said. On surrounding farms, piles of hay still burn, and dead animals litter the roads.
At a community meeting in Seymour, deputy incident controller Greg Murphy warned, “We’re not out of the woods yet.” Emergency services are working to get people back to their properties safely, but some areas remain on fire, with power lines down and thick smoke limiting visibility.
