Counting the cruel cost of wildfire

February 4, 2006 Melbourne Age, One of the Crowd Martin Flanagan

MOYSTON, outside Ararat, can fairly claim to be the home of Australian football. Tom Wills grew up there. His father, Horatio, came overland from NSW when Tom was three and named Mount Ararat "because here, as in the Bible, we rested".

The local Aboriginal people were the Djabwurrung. One of their stories — so I once read — is that fire came to earth when it crashed into the block of mountains to the west, which they called Gariwerd and the Scots settlers who followed called the Grampians.

Two weeks ago, fire again crashed to earth in the same block of mountains. Over several days of wild winds, the fire perimeter grew to 400 kilometres.

In the process, Moyston, home of Australian football, was nearly burnt out, the fire eventually stopping just a few kilometres short of its western boundary. In the city, the story held up as a news story for a couple of days but is now being forgotten.

Paddocks grazed by fire is what I see first, trees white as ash, leaves turned brown. Then I see a melted tin shed, the ruins of an old home. We're headed to Thermopylae station.

The man who named the station was something of a philosopher. In 1906, he went to London, which had a terrible fire. Fleeing the calamity that threatened his holiday, he went to the other side of the world, arriving in San Francisco in time for its earthquake.

His grandson, Tom Guthrie, told me this. Tom lost 3500 sheep in the fire — more than half his flock — and his vineyard, plus assorted sheds and machinery.

We continued along the Willaura road, turning at an avenue of charred and blackened trees that looked like giant burnt matchsticks. We drove up there for a few kilometres before discovering the farmhouse that, together with the area around it, had been saved.

We approached the house. With me was Mark Hogan, a former editor of the Ararat newspaper who also played footy for Ararat and now works for the local development board. He's worried that with the story having been dropped by television, it will drop just as quickly from public consciousness. I share his concern.

Four dogs meet us, the quietest farm dogs I have ever encountered. Not a yelp out of one of them. The biggest of them — a brown, long-haired kelpie — is called Billy Brownless. Near him is Couchie. The day of the fire, Couchie helped his master herd 1000 sheep to safety with the fire 100 metres from their feet.

The old-timers always said that when fires came to the Mafeking Valley, the flames ran along the hilltops. They did that, but this time they also reached down into the plain.

When Tom's wife, Sarah, saw the flames enter the valley — "so big, so strong, so fierce" — she thought they were going to die. Having her two children with her actually helped, she thinks. It calmed her.

Tom Guthrie is a Geelong supporter with the gentlest grin. He was with a friend examining his property after the fire when he saw a group of blackened ewes in the corner of a paddock.

He said: "I'll ask you to check that out, if you don't mind." All but four of the 869 were dead and the survivors had to be put down because of their fearful injuries.

We talk about global warming. He is open to the idea but is also mindful of the fact there was a terrible drought in western Victoria about the time of Federation.

Afterwards, Sarah, who grew up down the road as a Kelly, takes us as close to the national park as we can get. The destruction is different than before, more total. Ancient redgums that have burst in the heat lie shattered on their sides. Trees are leafless and black as paint, the land beneath them a white dust.

There is a sense that something orange and vengeful passed this way. The occasional tree still smoulders. If you were told you were approaching hell, you would believe it.

Eventually, we can go no further, a couple of men in overalls are trying to clear fallen trees now blocking the road. Turning round, we see a dozen or so beehives that escaped the blaze. The bees are in confusion.

Then she takes us to their winery, which has the ideal slope facing north and a hillside of vines that are now a dull rusty colour, with grapes-like clusters of tiny brown glass jewellery.

Their winery, Grampians Estate, is a major sponsor of the Moyston-Willaura Football Club. The players come each year to pick the grapes by hand. In November, Grampians Estate won a national prize in Canberra for its shiraz. On January 22, it was burnt to the ground. "That's life," said this woman of the land.

People wishing to donate to the Grampians bushfire appeal can do so through Ararat Rural City Council on (03) 5355 0200.