‘15 years of work gone in 10 minutes’

When a firestorm struck the towns of Buchan and Sarsfield in the summer of 2019-20, there was a point when everything had been engulfed by the flames.

Burning through vast plains and cattle fields, 24 homes were destroyed in Buchan, and great-grandfather Mick Roberts, who had lived at his property for 20 years, lost his life while trying to defend it.

“The fire came from the back here and the column fell over. And what it did was it just dropped everything onto the ground out here, so everything caught fire,” Buchan Caves Hotel owner, Greg Brick, said in an interview for a new video series supporting bushfire-affected communities, Open for Business.

“It was chaos at the time. Stand out in the road there and look around, 360-degrees, and there was nothing that wasn’t on fire.”

A four-year drought didn’t help matters, Parks Victoria Ranger Team Leader, Hamish Hancock, explained, meaning “there was a lot of dry fuel and things in the area”.

At the Wildflower Bunch Flower Farm in Sarsfield, 14,500 plants were in the ground when the fires struck.

“The whole plantation was burnt in 10 minutes,” the farm’s co-owner, Kevin Giles, said…

Want to know more click here go to source.

From News.com.au - March 29, 2021