As Melissa Benson and her family battled in the wind to put up a marquee for her 40th birthday celebrations it gave them an inkling of the terrible night that was to come.
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As the party went on at the Ecklin-district property, the wind didn’t let up.
“There were people saying they needed to leave and try to get back because people were getting worried about the wind,” Ms Benson said.
“We decided we’d do the cake so people could go, that must have only been about 9pm… we then had the wife of the Ecklin Fire Brigade boss get notification that the fire was heading straight at us.
“We were told to stay put.
“It was all hands on deck then. We had towels around the windows. We had fires on either side of us, we could see the Garvoc one coming and we had the Terang one going past us. It looked like our farm was on fire.”
The Bensons ended up sheltering their party guests and a few neighbours as the fires raged around them. Some who stayed at the property ended up losing their own homes.
“We had just under 60 people. The Garvoc fire that was coming across hit Gores Road, so the people there came to our house, we acted as the safe house.
“I’m a nurse and we had a couple of nurses, so we just went into triage mode and we got everyone’s names down and we were able to photocopy them and send them to… the CFA.
“There were actually trucks dispersed to protect us, but then they had to leave again.”
Rain began to fall about 4.30am, but many waited out the firestorm until daylight.
Ms Benson describes her family as one of the “lucky ones”, but she’s heartbroken for those who weren’t.
“We only lost the very back corner of our farm. God help us, everyone else lost everything,” she said.
“I’m sitting at home this morning and I’m feeling guilty. We can’t do anything, we can’t do anything until the insurance companies start to act so we can go help our friends clean up.”