Sisters remember dad, brother lost in Ash Wednesday fires

For sisters Shiree Wright and Debbie Dolan the anniversary on February 16 - the day they lost their father and brother - was emotional.

"That was an extremely traumatic day for us," Mrs Wright said. "It's something you never forget."

Mrs Wright was working in Warrnambool when the fires broke out in 1983. "It was just a very horrible day and one you wouldn't wish on anybody to have to go through," she said.

Her father and brother had gone out on horseback to bring back the cattle from an outpaddock at their Garvoc property closer to the house.

"The horses came home but they didn't," Mrs Wright said.

To this day the family still has unanswered questions about how and why their father and brother came to be in the car with Terang journalist Rick Scroggie and his dad Roy that day.

"Those two had come along and picked Dad and Greg up and that's when they got stranded on Howards Road," Mrs Wright said. None of the occupants survived.

"It's incomprehensible to think that it happened," Mrs Wright said. "It was just a very shocking time.

"We have no idea why they were ever in that car because they'd gone on horses to bring the cattle home.

"Forty years on it's still a question that we're never going to know the answer to - why they were ever in the car."

It wasn't until late the next day the family found out George, 58, and Greg, 28, were in the car.

On the day of the fire, a neighbour driving past the property had spotted their mother in the window and stopped to give her a ride into Terang.

"They drove past that car," Mrs Dolan said. "It would have been just devastating just driving past that car."

Mrs Wright said: "There was no reason for them to be in that car so mum wouldn't have realised."

The dairy was destroyed in the fire but the two houses on the property didn't get burnt.

"We'd have given anything for those houses to have gone and have them back instead," Mrs Wright said.

Not realising the pair was in the car, the day after the fire they searched everywhere for them.

"It was a rather horrifying day the next day going out down to the dairy, lifting up sheets of burnt tin looking to see if they were there," she said.

"They were driving around paddocks looking to see if they could see them, maybe whether they had sheltered up in culverts."

Mrs Wright said it was important to lay a wreath at the Panmure memorial on the anniversary.

"Sometimes I think people think that the longer it gets, the easier it gets but I'm not sure that's quite true," she said.

Mrs Wright was close to both her brother - who at the time had a three-week-old newborn - and her dad.

"My brother was a teaser as big brothers would be. He was out in the community and got on really well with people," she said.

"Dad was a farmer who just liked his farm and family. They were hard workers."

Mrs Dolan said she had "all wonderful" memories of her dad and brother.

Times were different then, they said. Their mother was a strong woman and "just carried on".

An official service will be held on Sunday, February 19, 2023 at 2pm at the Panmure memorial with the public welcome to attend.