They came to build fences for those affected by the St Patrick’s Day fires, but what BlazeAid volunteers got in return was life-long friends.
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On Sunday, fire victims gathered in Cobden to say their goodbyes and thank the 669 volunteers who between them have devoted 5600 days to fixing 660 kilometers of fencing on 116 properties.
The work of the volunteers, whose average age is 68, has been valued at $1.76 million. And in the past nine months they have managed to put in more than 94,000 posts.
The army of Blazeaid volunteers started arriving in the south-west just days after the blazes destroyed 26 houses, 66 sheds and thousands of livestock. The Cobden camp, one of three which ran in the region, has become the longest running in the organisation’s history.
Elingamite farmer Sam Usher was away in Sydney looking after his ill mother when he got a call from a mate to say there were fires near his house on March 17.
At 8.30am the next day he got the news his 120-year-old house was gone. “Everything’s burnt except for the old dairy and the hot house,” Mr Usher said. The fire burnt had around the hot house without melting the plastic, but a tank nearby was destroyed.
He’d made it all the way to Colac by Sunday night, but wasn’t allowed into the fire zone until the next morning.
Mr Usher said he was probably lucky that he was away when the fire went through. “You survive that way, your house you can always rebuild,” he said.
He said the only recognisable thing left in house was an iron clawfoot bath. “You wouldn’t want to bath in it, it’s a bit rough,” he said.
Mr Usher said the property, which he had lived in for about 28 years, was one of the area’s original farmhouses. Gone are its period pressed tin ceilings and leadlight windows.
“The wife’s lost rings and things, and her mother and father’s ashes were in the house,” he said. “It’s things that you can never replace. How do you put a value on that?”
Mr Usher also lost all his fences and 10 Friesian bulls out of 135 livestock on the property. He said three days after the fire, BlazeAid volunteers had started working to fix fences.
Mr Usher said it was not just about posts and wire, it was having someone to talk to. Just weeks after the fire, Mr Usher lost his mum who he had been visiting when the fires went through.
He said while the fires were bad, he had made so many good friends and had some of the most fun of his life with them. “There’s a lot of good that’s come out of it,” he said.
Among those good friends is volunteer and retired Woorndoo farmer Barry Veale who described Mr Usher as an inspiration.
“He’s modest. To find somebody who’s lost everything with such a positive attitude just lifts BlazeAid,” he said. “It’s the camaraderie more than anything else.” Mr Veale was on holidays when the fires went through, and he returned to the area just a few days later to help those that have supported him. He said that before he retired he’d had supplied a lot of grain to farmers in the area.
Chris Male, who along with husband John have run the Cobden camp, said she had mixed feelings about leaving. She said she had made life-long friends over the past nine months, but so many had become like family.
Mrs Male said she was thankful that when she heads home to Traralgon on Thursday, she would be distracted by the busyness of Christmas. “It’ll let us down a lot easier than if we just walked away,” she said.
Mrs Male said the care in the community was unlike any other they had experienced in the many BlazeAid camps they had worked in all over Australia. “Your community is unique and very special,” she said.
Fire victim Linda Morgan said many wouldn’t be doing as well as they were without the Males and the BlazeAid team. “You made us believe we could rebuild,” she said.
“At anytime any of us could come in and talk to you. You cleaned and cleared our farms and you built such amazing fences.”
Ken Graham, of Geelong, said the hours he spent volunteering were worth it just to see the smile on farmers’ faces.