{"id":405813,"date":"2026-01-11T08:06:04","date_gmt":"2026-01-11T08:06:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/405813\/"},"modified":"2026-01-11T08:06:04","modified_gmt":"2026-01-11T08:06:04","slug":"it-was-calm-and-then-just-hectic-david-rigby-couldnt-escape-the-longwood-bushfire-so-faced-the-inferno-bushfires","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/405813\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018It was calm \u2026 and then just hectic\u2019: David Rigby couldn\u2019t escape the Longwood bushfire so faced the inferno | Bushfires"},"content":{"rendered":"

On the outskirts of Yarck, a small farming town in central Victoria<\/a>, the ground is still smouldering. Gumtrees are flickering with flames as white ash whips through the air.<\/p>\n

Across the region, houses are reduced to warped steel, with brick chimneys often the only thing left standing.<\/p>\n

At his property, Dave Rigby is pointing just metres from his back fence. The ground is black. But the grass he is standing on is green, the garden almost immaculate, and his house \u2013 it\u2019s still standing.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was actually preparing to leave at 10am yesterday,\u201d Rigby says on Sunday. \u201cI went down the street to talk to my neighbours, they had just gone to leave, but by that time, you just couldn\u2019t get out. All the roads were cut.\u201d<\/p>\n

So Rigby set to work. He was prepared with bore water and a generator. He rigged up sprinklers across his property. He hosed down his house, and with about five other neighbours, they did their best to protect the small street. Many of the homes were saved.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was stressed,\u201d he says. \u201cThe wind was just howling through here. You couldn\u2019t see because of the smoke. The trees were just bent over.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yarck\u2019s Country Fire Authority (CFA) members had been an hour north, in Longwood, where the bushfire started. They\u2019d been forced back, and back, until they were defending their own homes.<\/p>\n

A destroyed house near the centre of Yarck. Photograph: Steve Womersley\/The Guardian<\/p>\n

Rigby on Sunday points to the nearby hills, noting neighbours\u2019 houses that were razed. The dairy farm on the ridge, the woman who had a small shack at the end of the road and his back neighbour. They lost everything.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were pinched in the middle of it,\u201d he says. \u201cYou could just see flames from the ridge line, all through down here. It was calm, calm, calm, and then just hectic.\u201d<\/p>\n

As bushfires continued to burn across Victoria, residents who evacuated want to return home. But authorities first need to make sure it\u2019s safe.<\/p>\n

No one yet knows the extent of the damage. But at least 300 structures have been destroyed, including 80 homes, with 350,000 hectares burned. One person died<\/a> with their body found about 100 metres from a vehicle off Yarck Road at Gobur.<\/p>\n

On social media, anxious residents ask if their homes are safe, if someone could check whether their cows have water, or if there\u2019s spare feed?<\/p>\n

Burnt sheep at the Gunya Animal Healing Sanctuary in Yarck. Photograph: Steve Womersley\/The Guardian<\/p>\n

On the other side of the Yarck ridge, Kathy Munslow returns to the animal shelter she runs to find many of them injured. All are hungry. Some are missing.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe animals are standing in smouldering paddocks and the fence is still burning,\u201d Munslow says of her Gunyah Animal Healing Sanctuary.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe only thing standing here is my house, which the CFA saved because the fire came within three inches on all sides. Everything else is gone. I\u2019m just here on my own, feeling really scared.\u201d<\/p>\n

Like many in the area, Munslow is desperately trying to find food for her surviving animals. She had just spent $3,000 on hay, which is now a pile of ash.<\/p>\n

Spending \u201c$3,000 on hay doesn\u2019t sound like a lot, but for a struggling charity, that\u2019s a year\u2019s worth that\u2019s all burned down. I only got it a week or two ago.\u201d<\/p>\n

The fire burned the generator, so she has no power. The taps have stopped running. There\u2019s no phone reception.<\/p>\n

Hay bales burn in a paddock near Kanumbra outside Yarck. Photograph: Steve Womersley\/The Guardian<\/p>\n

Down the road, the only thing open in Yarck is the pub. Chris Charman is keeping it running while his friend, the proprietor, tries to save his own property.<\/p>\n

On Saturday morning, it took Charman four hours to get 15km up the road, to find his own house had burned down. But he brushed that aside, more concerned about his mates who had lost livestock and their livelihoods.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo many houses, and so many farms are gone,\u201d Charman says. \u201cNo one actually knows how bad it is. So many livestock are dead.\u201d<\/p>\n

On the surrounding farms, piles of hay are still burning in paddocks. Dead animals litter the roads \u2013 koalas, cows, some carcasses so burnt they\u2019re unrecognisable.<\/p>\n

At a community meeting in Seymour on Saturday night, the deputy incident controller, Greg Murphy, told residents they were working to get people back to their properties \u201cat the earliest possible, but safe, opportunity\u201d.<\/p>\n

Longwood bushfire deputy incident controller Greg Murphy outlines the dangers during a community meeting. Photograph: Steve Womersley\/The Guardian<\/p>\n

Some areas are still on fire. As Murphy spoke, the Longwood blaze had spread across 136,000 hectares. Powerlines are down, trees have fallen across roads, and there is thick smoke in places. A wind change could mean a new area is under threat.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not out of the woods yet,\u201d he says. The next steps are clear: control the fire, make the roads safe and provide the relief that\u2019s desperately sought.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not a long process, but it is a thorough process,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd we will do it safely. Unfortunately, I did hear a comment this morning that if you take too long, we\u2019re just going to go around it. Please consider that behaviour.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gun shops have started donating ammunition to exhausted farmers. In Mansfield, in the foothills of the Victorian Alps, Shane Curley had already given out hundreds of rounds of ammunition by Sunday morning.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had a couple of farmers in yesterday,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey had 500-600 sheep, so I just gave them a bunch of ammo. There will be thousands of cattle and sheep that are burnt that \u2026\u201d He trails off, before adding \u201cthis will be very hard\u201d.<\/p>\n

Shane Curley owns Mansfield Hunting and Fishing. Photograph: Steve Womersley\/The Guardian<\/p>\n

After the 2019-20 fires, Curley says they didn\u2019t open the gun shop for over three months, while he went around helping farmers put down livestock. As he talks, tears appear.<\/p>\n

With his wife, Mandy, they will go and cook for farmers or help euthanise animals, like they did last time.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, it\u2019s not going to be good,\u201d he says. \u201cI will probably need more donations, but I don\u2019t mind handing out ammo if I can just do something to help.\u201d<\/p>\n

State Nationals MP Annabelle Cleeland and her husband have a farm outside Euroa, in the north-east of the state. Her family evacuated, and they haven\u2019t been able to get back to check on their stock. She fears they could have lost 1,000 sheep.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t know yet, but we need to get in there because we\u2019re looking after animals,\u201d Cleeland says.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat is our job as farmers. There is this deep innate sense of protection to get back there to make sure they\u2019ve got food and water, because we will not let them starve like that, that\u2019s just torturous.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her electorate sits at the top of the fire map, and she says they are moving from the initial fight phase to the recovery phase. With a group of locals, she is running a drive to get animal feed to those who need it.<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone here has been impacted by this tragedy. It\u2019s no one, no one will be unscathed,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On the outskirts of Yarck, a small farming town in central Victoria, the ground is still smouldering. Gumtrees…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":405814,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-405813","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405813","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=405813"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405813\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/405814"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=405813"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=405813"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=405813"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}