It's been almost two years since fire swept through the Grummett family farm in Terang but instead of focusing on what they lost that night they are looking at the positives.

The road to recovery was a long and hard and there are always things that bring back memories of what happened that night.

But they are now filled with hope and positivity, and it's that message Phillip wants to send to those who have been hit this summer.

"To the poor buggers that have been hit this year, things do get rebuilt," he said while sitting in a brand new shed and workshop that replaced the 100-year-old shed that once stood there.

"The old one was good, but life goes on.

"I know what they've gone through and they don't want to be reminded either. Your fences can get rebuilt. It takes time ... one step at a time, things will get better.

"I don't want to look back at what I lost."

Phillip was watching TV that night when the power went out. But it was a phone call that alerted him to the fire which had started near the Terang sub station, just three kilometres from his property.

"By the time I knew the fire was here I looked up the back there and the cows were buggered," he said.

Phillip, his wife and kids fled, but halfway down the road Phillip decided he could save the cows.

So he and one of his sons, Jordan, jumped in the ute and herded 50 of his early calvers about a kilometre to the dairy while winds up to 120km/h fanned the flames and trees fell around them.

"The fire was only 50 yards from the cows when I got there. And they were just standing there looking at it," he said.

"My main ambition for the night was to save as many cows as I could because that's our livelihood. You can replace a shed, but cows, they're your lifeblood.

"The fire was chasing me all the way.

"I had a set of bolt cutters and I cut the fences to get the ute through because we'd used the ute not the bike, just in case a tree did fall down."

"The fire was coming in behind me and I'm banging on the roof and tooting on the horn to keep the cows moving."

By the time he got to the dairy he could see the flashing lights of a fire truck arriving at his house.

Firefighters doused his house in water and managed to save it.

The fire was heading towards his milking cows, so Phillip jumped on a quad bike and pushed about 150 of them into the dairy.

Phillip and his mate then filled a pack on the back of a ute with water and managed to put out a 500-metre fire line that was then heading towards the dairy. Thankfully it was slow moving because the grass was so short, he said.

"The fire was trickling along. The wind was so directional that night, like you'd turned a fan on and it was blowing in the one direction."

By the time Phillip arrived back at the house, the sheds were ablaze and flames had come within 10 metres of the house itself.

His father Ian, 78, who owns the farms that once belonged to his grandfather and has worked there since he was 16, arrived the next morning.

"You see the cows, some had the hair burnt off, the ear tags burnt off, some were dead, some were alive. That really hit me hard, it really did. It would just about bring you to tears. Those cows are like friends," Ian said.

"Taken out just like that."

Phillip said about 35 of his cows were "burnt dead" and about 35 were injured and had to be put down by Department of Primary Industries staff.

"I buried them the next day," he said.

But Phillip and his son had managed to saved 180 cows, animals he says he has a strong connection to because "you're with them all the time" - twice a day when you're milking and when you're feeding them.

Those first months after the fires burnt 80 per cent of the farm's fencing were filled with 12 to 16-hour days rebuilding the farm.

But without the help of BlazeAid to reconstruct the 24 kilometres of fencing, Phillip said he wouldn't have coped.

A new report into the St Patrick's Day fires has highlighted the chaos of that night when 53 fires were sparked across the south-west in just 11 hours.

About 24,000 hectares was lost when the fires, which broke out on the night of March 17, were fanned by winds of up to 110km/h.

The four main fires at Terang, Garvoc, Camperdown and Gazette left a trail of destruction which included 26 houses, 66 outbuildings and 3000 livestock.

Although not unprecedented, the nature of the fire behaviour burning with sustained high intensity during that night was unusual, the newly released report into the St Patrick's Day fires by Emergency Management Victoria says.

"With many fires igniting in a short period of time, responding to multiple fires at various locations was challenging and complex for agencies and community members," the report said.

"It was difficult to understand what was happening and effectively share information during this initial period of chaos."

Energy disruptions, telecommunications failures and implications of peat fire smoke added to the challenges, the report says.

There were more than 1000 reports of fallen trees that night, many blocking roads.

But about 800 people made it to the 10 relief centres as warnings popped up on the emergency app.

"With the power out and telecommunications disabled, many community members reported being unable to receive or access emergency alerts, public information, warnings, road closure details and community information or make contact with others via phone," the report says.

The report said that getting the information out to people was an even bigger challenge because many people were already asleep when the fires started.

Some of the public information was initially confusing or didn't include information that enabled them to make effective decisions.

"There's a fire popping up every minute on the app. Unfortunately our phones were almost flat because it was the end of the day and then shortly after that the power went out ... we had sprinklers set up on the lawn and plugged in and taps on but there was no water coming out unfortunately because we had no power," a resident says in the report.

"For many families and individuals, the impacts of the fires are ongoing and the recovery process has been protracted."

The report reveals there are 107 roadside locations across the south-west deemed as high-risk for bushfires and in need of vegetation management.

Fuel reduction and dangerous trees was highlighted in the report as one of the major concerns of fire victims.

Work to reduce hazardous trees and reducing fuel loads has been carried out on 96 per cent of the locations, VicRoads says.

The work was needed to provide safer access in and out of some towns and remote locations, the report says, and is on top of routine maintenance works.

So far this financial year, Regional Roads Victoria has undertaken 4637 kilometres of grass cutting in the south-west.

In the wake of the fires, a joint research project between Fire Forest Management and Melbourne University was conducted which aimed to help identify high priority areas for roadside vegetation management across the south-west.

The interest in the study into fuel management prompted 600 responses to a postal survey where residents raised concerns about long grass on roadsides, falling trees and branches blocking the road in the event of fire.

"People would like to see simpler rules around roadside vegetation and closer cooperation between the managing agencies," the report found.

Corangamite Shire mayor Neil Trotter said he was concerned the study wouldn't influence fuel management policy. "So I don't know what the intention of the study is," he said.

The ferocity of St Partick's Day blazes, which swept through the south-west late at night, has also prompted fire authorities to trial new technology to enable night-time aerial bombing.

Trials were carried out last summer with two helicopters deployed to 13 fires over 20 nights.

"The spread of the fire during the night reinforced the need to explore how night vision technology and after dark waterbombing could help protect communities in the future," the report says.

The report reveals residents were frustrated with the fire risk posed by overhead powerlines.

South West Coast MP Roma Britnell said the report provided no recommendations or actions that would be taken as a result of the fires.

Ms Britnell said the report was more akin to a glossy promotional document and contained little information.

She said she was particularly concerned the government was still trying to figure out how to best manage roadsides.

"It's just mind boggling that two years later they are still trying to figure this out," she said.

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