Home owner counting his losses from ‘insane’ Pelham bushfire

When David Curtis evacuated his property, fire surrounded his colonial cottage on three sides as a 1600ha blaze threatened to destroy everything he owned.

DAVID Curtis is collecting carcasses from the rear of his rural property, which this week became a graveyard for his 40-odd chickens “barbecued” by bushfire.

But Mr Curtis didn’t lose only his chooks during Pelham’s 1600ha fire, which ignited from a lighting strike in a nearby paddock on Monday afternoon.

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The hobby farmer also lost two boats, his well-equipped home-brewing and home-butchery sheds, water tanks and several kilometres of fencing.

Yet considering that flames were licking the front of his colonial-era cottage after he and his partner finally evacuated on Monday night following several hours fighting spot fires, Mr Curtis is grateful he hasn’t lost everything.

“We stayed as long as we could – there was fire on three sides when I went,” he said.

“One of the fireys said ‘if you’re gonna go, go now’ … there was fire licking up the front of the house.”

David Curtis surveys the damage to his Pelham property. Picture: ZAK SIMMONDS

His next-door neighbour used a mobile firefighting unit on his home after he evacuated, preventing it from serious damage or destruction.

Mr Curtis also said he thankfully didn’t lose any of his sheep, cats or dogs.

“None of them got hurt. A lot of chooks disappeared though, probably about 40 of them,” he said, retrieving their cremated remains from the rubble of his sheds.

“There’s bloody heaps of them. They got barbecued.”

Damaged properties at Pelham. Picture: ZAK SIMMONDS

He said he had never experienced a bushfire so intense since moving to Pelham two years ago.

“I enjoy this lifestyle. I like living far out of the suburbs,” he said.

“[But] where you live comes with risks.

“It was just insane out here – the heat and wind.”

Mr Curtis noted that even though he may have lost up to $100,000 in the blaze, some of his neighbours had fared just as bad, if not worse.

He pointed to his neighbour across the road, an elderly man who lost all his outbuildings, possibly all his deer, suffered significant damage to his weatherboard home, and whose son suffered smoke inhalation.

“[These are the] simple things that everyone takes for granted – we’re only 40km out of the city.”