Tony Jarvis was fighting flames next door during the Black Summer bushfires

Veteran CFA member Tony Jarvis recalls feeling helpless as his crew was trapped in their truck during the Black Summer bushfires at Cudgewa.

A CFA member in the Upper Murray for 50 years, Tony Jarvis felt helpless on all accounts when the Black Summer fire front came through Cudgewa.

He was on a fire truck defending a neighbour’s place while his wife Marja and two daughters were home alone.

“We got trapped and burnt over on the truck,” Tony said.

“I didn’t know it had gone through our place but assumed it had.

Cudgewa farmer Tony Jarvis' farm was devastated by the fires.

“I felt helpless. It was the wrong decision. I shouldn’t have been on that truck, I should have been at home … but we couldn’t do much about what was happening to us and couldn’t do much about what was happening to anyone else at that stage.”

The girls, who were CFA-trained, managed to save the main homestead but the remaining 490ha of the family farm succumbed to the flames.

They lost two house buildings, every shed and fence on the property, and 80 head of beef cattle.

“Once the fire went past us, Greg, who was driving the truck, assessed we should be able to get out to the town,” Tony said.

Cudgewa after the fire. Picture: Tony Gough

“We didn’t have much water left. We went back into town. His house later burnt down. Whether decisions are right or wrong at the time, once you make them, you just have to live with them.”

When the fire threat had passed, the Jarvises set about euthanizing injured stock, fixing water infrastructure for animals, propping up fences and destocking.

“We had a lot of burnt stock,” Tony said.

“It got difficult, there was so much smoke around, you couldn’t see where they were.”

The Department of Agriculture did assessments. If animals were fit enough to get to abattoirs they were taken but logistics were hard and some animals were rejected on arrival.

“The town shire organised a crew with excavators and trucks to dig a big pit in our paddock – we stockpiled and put the dead animals in,” Tony said.

“That area was closed off and we had another pit beside it that we put dead stock in too.”

The rebuilding of sheds and fences has only just finished five years on.

“Sometimes it feels like it’s been 10 years,” Tony said.

“We are battle weary … but Cudgewa as a town looks pretty good again.”