Thanks to everyone who has reached out to check on us; the humans, cows and farm are all exhausted but okay. We were ridiculously lucky. The fire which started on Friday 9 January and became known as the Fogartys Gap/Ravenswood fire was a text-book, worst case scenario for us at the farm. Yet somehow by virtue of being in the shadow of the Harcourt township, our farm has currently, miraculously it feels, remained unburnt. Many others in Harcourt and surrounds have not been so lucky. That Friday afternoon Harcourt lost 48 houses, the Harcourt Cooperative Cool Stores, housing some 85 businesses and the Coolstore cafe. Not to mention sheds, animals, wildlife, trees, fences and pasture. The people affected have been front of mind for us this past week.
We’ve been evolving our fire plan for years now. There are certainly things we wish we’d done better, like cut more grass in the lead up. However, overall I was really happy with how we worked together on the day. As soon as we knew the catastrophic day was declared we closed the farm to everyone other than our stay-and-defend crew of Katie, Hugh and I. At 10am we met to talk about the day and decided to start enacting our plan by turning on the pump, some orchard irrigation blocks, the misters on the shed and a sprinkler in the stock yards.
This meant that by the time the Ravenswood fire started, things were already quite wet. I preemptively set up extra stock yards and fencing ready to get the milkers in if needed.
When the Vic Emergency app went off we quickly jumped into action. Grateful for the preparation we’d already done, I was able to get help from Katie and Hugh bringing the milkers and heifers into the stock yards. I dropped all gates in picnic gully for the dry herd to have more space, but had to make the decision that they would have to fend for themselves. I then stayed with the herd hosing the space down, staying in constant communication with our farm crew who were metres away at the sheds and also with others offsite.
We watched the fire build and build as it raced down the valley. Then the predicted south-westerly wind change happened and the long tongue became the wide fire front. What we hadn’t anticipated, was that at this point the smoke was so thick we couldn’t see where the fire was. Was it about to race up the gully? We could only wait. We planned that when the front approached we’d retreat to a space between the metal shed and water tank saturated with the misters. On this day, thankfully, we never reached that point.
As the hours passed, we gradually got more understanding about the fire’s progress, finally able to see the valley again as the smoke cleared and the fire took off up the mountain. For three nights, we took shifts watching as the Mount burned.
As the immediate fire danger decreased, my mind moved into logistics. We had no power and would likely not for days as many power poles lay in pieces on the ground. I decided straight-up to announce there would be no dairy for a week. Without power overnight, all the dairy I had already bottled got too warm to sell. While I could still milk the cows, I had no ability to chill and process milk until the power returned. I needed to manage my energy, recover, stay alert in case the fire came back and focus on the necessities of feeding cows, milking cows, sleeping and eating. The morning after the fire I delivered every drop of milk from the farm in the refrigerated Hilux to my dear friend Lydia who had power in Castlemaine. (Lydia just had her first shift working with us this week – yipee!) Lydia ran a cheese making production line at home for days, filling my freezer with enough halloumi and fresh cheese to last a lifetime!
I was so shocked at how quickly agencies got to work restoring services and, nothing short of a miracle, the power was restored on Monday night. I’ve been back in production for five days now which seems quite surreal.
Three days after the fire started we had another adrenaline-fueled day as fire crews feared the south-easterly winds predicted for that night could push the fire back down from the mount and on to us. As the public and Harcourt began their post-fire recovery, we were looking high risk again. Fire crews from the CFA and FFMV worked tirelessly, water bombing, patrolling, dropping fire retardant lines from planes, back-burning, front-burning and driving a big D6 dozer straight through the back of our property creating a fire break, giving us our own private road from the oak forest through to Faraday.
Each night we walked up to our ridge line to see where they had burnt. So far all their work has paid off, the fire has not come back down from the mount. While we won’t call the fire ‘out’ until we get our first big dump of rain (hopefully slow-falling to minimise erosion of all the burnt landscape) we are currently calling ourselves very bloody lucky.
Throughout all this the cows were amazing. They remained calm, ruminating in the yards. On our second night of fire threat I managed to get every cow on the farm into the yards. In three separate sections we had the young heifers, the dry cows including Teddy and the milking herd. They weren’t too happy about spending the night there but I wasn’t taking the risk. Teddy, on the other hand, loved every minute of it, having ALL his girls with him! He was chuffed and sad to part ways the next morning
We’ve seen lots of speculation over what has happened, could have happened, should have happened. But we have also seen community and friendships unite and strengthen. I have been absolutely overwhelmed by the support I have received, often making me feel more emotional than the fire itself. A huge thank you to our amazing community.
How can you help?
Donations
At these times there is an outpouring of people wanting to help in some way and it’s important to make sure all that good will gets to where it’s actually needed. There are lots of specific projects asking for donations such as BlazeAid but for a general way to help people affected by the Harcourt fires we are asking people to connect with the Harcourt Progress Association who are overseeing much of the support.
Connect with CFA
At the start of every fire season, every CFA brigade offers a free community awareness session. PLEASE ATTEND.
One of the best strategies moving forward in a changing climate is for people to have a better understanding of fire behavior and how they can better prepare for it. Knowledge is power. I can’t advocate enough for attending these events, annually if possible. These sessions provide such a valuable resource and are usually under-attended.
I also highly recommend becoming a CFA member if you have the capacity. To me, our CFA is one of the most inspiring organisations and a model we will surely need to extend as a necessity in the future. Thousands of people volunteer their time to help the community simply because they care. In our changing climate we are going to need more people being active in this way. If you are at all interested, connect with your local brigade.
Community preparedness
In a changing climate we need to be fighting for change at all levels. One of the most important ways is through household and community preparedness for natural disasters. We can’t keep hoping it will never happen to us and assume that someone else will come to save the day. When it comes to fires we all need to have a clear, realistic fire plan, which we stick to and continuously improve upon.
On days of catastrophic fire danger we need to spend the day at the place we will be sheltering, not on the road. Firstly being in a car on the road is the most dangerous place to be in a bushfire and secondly it compromises emergency services ability to get to where they need to be. Before the fire day, this may feel inconvenient. On the day, it is literally vital.
Our Coop learnings
Following this fire we have had many people reach out asking to learn more about our fire plan at the Coop. Over the years our plan has continuously evolved. Last time a fire came through in 2017, we were a little embarrassed by the state of our plan, with grass 1.5 metres high. It is always a document which is tested and improved, with a long term wishlist that we slowly tick off. It constantly changes to reflect who is around and their physical capacity.
We are loosely thinking we may run some event in the future on this, looking at our example and maybe working with CFA to deliver a workshop. We will definitely wait for the ash settle, giving us time for deep reflection and evaluation. Stay posted for this, maybe later in the year.
Stay safe everyone. There are many people in our community hurting at the moment. Thankfully, there are also many incredible people out there putting their energy into stopping these fires, protecting people and houses and looking after our community, without whom our farm would most definitely have been burnt. x
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