Victorian fires: Life goes on after the fires are out in Gippsland

It could be easy to forget the harrowing weeks where bushfires devastated many across the country in the midst of the coronavirus outbreak, but the memories are still fresh for many who continue to rebuild, writes Madeleine Stuchbery.

Bushfire aftermath: Forest and paddocks in near the Princes Highway near Bruthen in East Gippsland are starting to regrow following the fires and then rain in early 2020. Picture: Dannika Bonser

BUSHFIRE-affected East Gippsland is a world of contrasts: a place of astonishing regrowth and regeneration emerging from charred hillsides and blackened tree stumps.

The region from Bairnsdale to Omeo is a community that was already dealing with drought before being razed by bushfire, and now reeling and rebuilding amid the ashes.

The small township of ­Buchan was particularly affected, with twisted burnt sheds, metal signs warped in the heat of the flames, and a harrowing lack of fencing along the length of paddocks.

Simple, crude signs thanking CFA firefighters for their efforts are nailed to tree trunks; a spray-painted directive appearing over and over again as the kilometres click over; a sign points to a winery, burnt to a bronzed sheen.

In the midst of this coronavirus outbreak, it could be easy to forget the harrowing weeks when bushfires threatened vast swathes of the country.

But for many such as Sally Commins, who helped defend her family’s property at Swifts Creek during the fires, the memories remain fresh.

“When the fires were happening, about January 5, that was a really bad day for the Omeo and Benambra district. Properties were surrounded and threatened … black sky, dark embers and ash falling all day, fires to the north, the south, and the east. It was nuts,” Ms Commins said.

Game of chance: Sally and Genevieve Commins at Swifts Creek, where the Commins property was saved during last summer’s bushfires. Picture: Dannika Bonser

Her family runs Angus and Hereford cattle across properties at Hinnomunjie and Benambra.

“There’s a feeling of inertia and concern in the community. It’s a funny kind of feeling, this muted state we’re all in. People are resilient around here, and are trying to move on and rebuild, and to capitalise on the strong beef market, which we hope will hold on.”

Rainfall following the fires drew out the farmers, their broad smiles and stubborn optimism evident as they lined the rails at last month’s mountain calf sales, despite many being burnt out, losing stock, forced to sell cattle early or unable to yard anything at all.

Simon and Sonya Lawlor, who run a Hereford cattle farm near Omeo, sold a number of pens of their cattle at elevated prices at the Elders Omeo Hereford sale, and were even awarded best pen.

The condition of their cattle on the day was reward enough, Mr Lawlor said, for the hard work put in during a season plagued first by drought, then bushfire.

“We didn’t get burnt, but we were threatened,” he said. “We were very, very lucky.”

In Bairnsdale, a paramedic said they’d noticed an increase in their workload, with people feeling sick and even depressed.

One person who had lost everything described meeting people and feeling racked with “survivor guilt” — as though surviving the flames wasn’t enough.

“The mental impact on my family and other producers in the area has been enormous,” Ms Commins said.

While her family wasn’t burnt out like other producers, she said it had been an “extremely stressful time”, on top of “a terrible drought”.

“We’re kind of entering this hangover period,” she said. “People are trying to regroup, and try to evaluate what has happened.”

What rain has fallen means grass has started to grow in once empty paddocks. Fodder lines the sides of the road.

But the fire recovery is ongoing, Ms Commins said.

“It’s been months now, and while recovery is going on there’s still a really big concern that we might be heading into another summer where we experience dry conditions, and there’s an awful lot of bush not burned,” she said.

It could be easy to let the stark images of a summer burned and blackened by fire slip from your mind; to forget and to drive away.

But for families like Sally’s, or producers like the Lawlors, the grass will keep growing, as recovery and rebuilding goes on.