Troy Southen’s colleagues and son helped him defend his family home from savage fires
For two hours Troy Southen, his colleagues and son battled a ferocious fire, which came at them from three directions, in a bid to save his family home.
VIC News
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Troy Southen is used to defending people’s homes from raging fires, but not his own.
The Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning worker was battling blazes and protecting homes around Sarsfield on Monday when he heard over emergency radio that his street, Windsor Dr, was under attack.
He arrived moments before the blaze reached his property.
A neighbour dressed in shorts and a singlet and five other department workers, including his 18-year-old son Tom, joined the fight.
With limited water available, Mr Southen used a dozer to push flaming cars, fences and “everything that caught fire” over a hill and away from his house.
The two-hour fight was so ferocious he collapsed a number of times and his exhausted colleagues vomited.
“For two hours it was relentless. It came at us from three angles,” Mr Southen said.
“They all did an amazing job; I can’t believe that they stayed and defended my house like it was their own.”
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The group saved the house but eight vehicles, fences and fruit trees were destroyed.
Mr Southen said he owed his neighbour Adam Campbell and colleagues Lewis Kingston, Mick Farnham, Kobi Cook and Josh Seignior “a debt I can never repay”.
“Doing it as a job, it is always someone’s else house, someone else’s property,” he said.
“Being your own house, it has given me an understanding of how people feel when they wake up the next day and have a home to go home to.”
Mr Southen will be back fighting fires today.
“Hopefully we will do some good and make other people feel how I felt on Monday.”