The prestigious wineries and quaint townships of Yarra Valley have long made it a popular tourist destination. Yesterday, with the air thick with smoke, the forests charred black and hundreds of houses in ruins, the only people pouring in were the firefighters, paramedics and rescue teams.
The power of the conflagration is unmistakeable.
Evidence of it is everywhere, in the stench of burning wood, the smouldering remains of scorched scrubland, the blackened stumps of withered trees.
In the wreckage of a tool shed, the motor of a chainsaw has turned to molten metal.
Everyone here has a story to tell. Everyone has lost something: their home; their belongings; a loved one. One man reportedly drove his front loader digger into a dam, turned the bucket upside down over the water and climbed inside while the flames passed overhead. Others fled on foot and in cars along roads flanked by flames. Some escaped, but the region is littered with shells of cars that have become tombs.
Rod Williams, originally from Hampshire, moved with wife Moira to Chum Creek in the Yarra Valley three years ago. They have now taken their two-year-old daughter Sarah to the safety of a relative’s house two hours away after narrowly avoiding death.
”We live in a high risk area up in the gum trees and had been warned to get out by our neighbour, who was a firefighter in the previous worst bushfires in 1983,” said Williams. ”But when he left we decided to stay a bit longer. When the fire came it was so fast there was no way we could have driven out.
”The noise was incredible; explosions were going off around us. Then, just as it was about to reach the house, a sudden wind change came and it stopped. If it hadn’t, I wouldn’t be here now, I’m sure of it — the fire was like a blowtorch.”
A short drive north in Steels Creek the scene is bleaker still. Barely a home is left standing. One couple who chose to stay and save their farmhouse and animals had a miraculous escape, surviving by wrapping themselves in wet fire blankets and rolling on the ground as their house was destroyed. Their neighbour was less fortunate, her body found next to the chimney stack of her flattened home — one of several confirmed dead in the tiny community.
Some escaped not once, but twice. Nat Presutto (32) took to the roof of the Yarra Glen Grand Hotel with four friends armed with garden hoses to wet the building as flames approached on three fronts. Inside, up to 400 people who had sought refuge from burned out homes, bringing cats, dogs, tortoises and chickens, were kept oblivious to the danger around them.
”At one point we could see a wall of fire about 30 feet high coming across the fields,” said Presutto.
”The smoke was so thick I couldn’t even see across to the other side of the road. In all my life I’d never known what being scared really meant until Saturday when the fire was 100 yards away from me. Scared has a new meaning for me now.”
As it does for Rob Vries, who was driving him when a burning tree fell across the dirt track, narrowly missing his car. A fierce blaze, powered by high winds and temperatures well in excess of 38C, was devouring the forest around him. Dousing himself in water from a barrel kept by a neighbour as a precaution against fire, the volunteer firefighter wrapped his denim jacket around his head and stumbled blindly through the acrid black smoke. ”It was like a war zone,” he said. ”I’d never seen the likes of it before. I was sure my house would have gone.”
Remarkably, considering the wreckage of the caravan and car on his drive, his house remained intact.
”I’m just thankful I’m here,” he said. ”My friend who lives in the next house tried to hide in a spider hole behind his water tank when the flames came through. He managed to crawl out but was completely burnt down one side and is in hospital.”
In Kinglake West, one of several townships obliterated by the weekend’s fires, the Australian Defence Force is erecting tents, while the Red Cross, Salvation Army and other support services tend to survivors. In the north of Victoria the largest of the fires still burning — the Beechworth fire — is moving ominously towards several small communities where people must decide whether to escape or stay and defend their home.
Across the Yarra Valley fires covering several kilometres continue to burn, colouring the sky with a heavy pall of smoke. Alison Whyte (41) saved her Yarra Valley home by turning on roof sprinklers then jumping into a car with her family and outrunning the advancing flames. ”It came in so quickly. It was absolutely shocking.”
Sergeant Geoff Exton of Victoria police’s major collision unit, has 30 years’ experience. He was involved in the operation to tackle Ash Wednesday in 1983 — Victoria’s previous worst bushfires. ”I’ve never seen anything like this; some places look like they’ve been hit with napalm,” he said.
The severity of the situation has brought people together, speaking to neighbours for the first time in years, bonded by their common loss. The response to various appeals has been staggering.
Angie MacMillan, whose house survived, said: ”These occasions bring out the best of human nature.” – guardian.co.uk