Hundreds of cars exploding along with the incineration of a house and big cypress hedges were among the dangers that Neil Podger faced fighting the Terang fire overnight on Saturday.
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Mr Podger, 67, ran a vehicle wrecking business for about 40 years from his Elingamite North property before retiring about six years ago.
He had more than 300 vehicles left over from his business and had a car crusher booked for April 3 to begin a massive clean-up.
But Saturday night’s inferno has changed the look of his inventory dramatically.
Mr Podger said he was confronted by flames reaching up to 18 metres (60 feet) high when big cypress hedges exploded, car tyres exploding and jumping three metres into the air as his wrecking yard burnt and his neighbour’s house being consumed by flames as the “monster” blaze ran amok.
“All hell broke loose,” he said.
He, his son Leigh and friend John Adams fought the fire throughout the night from about 11.30pm until about 8am on Sunday, battling to keep it from taking hold in a cypress hedge near Mr Podger’s house that adjoins his wrecking yard.
Mr Podger and his family and his neighbour had earlier in the evening fled a western wing of the Terang fire.
He had to rouse the neighbour who was sleeping soundly as the wall of flame approached.
His family went to the Cobden relief centre but Mr Podger and his friend John Adams went on to Glenfyne to help Mr Podger’s son Leigh who was trying to defend his property there.
Fortunately the fire went around his son’s Glenfyne property and the three returned to Mr Podger’s Elingamite North property where they fought throughout the night to save Mr Podger’s house and workshop from a “monster” fire front to the north that bore down on them soon after they arrived.
At one stage, Mr Podger was inside a burning shed where he was able to save his neighbour’s tractor but could not prevent the tyres of a baling machine from burning.
Mr Podger said they had three water backpacks and a water tank attached to Mr Adams’s utility to battle the blaze.
Both he and Mr Adams have considerable experience in the CFA and drew upon that in the battle to save Mr Podger’s house.
But Mr Podger still counts their successful defence as “a lucky break” and reckons his efforts overnight on Saturday might have pushed his luck too far.
He said he was lucky also in the 1983 Ash Wednesday fires that narrowly missed his property.
“But my lucky breaks will run out one day,” Mr Podger said.