“IT’s heading along the ridge towards our place.”
These were the words of Christy Kemp at 6pm last night as she watched the 1300-hectare Mount Feathertop bushfire roar only two kilometres away from her Smoko property.
All she and her husband Andy Kemp could do was watch and wait.
They had taken the kids to Bright on Tuesday and the birth certificates and laptops had been packed away.
The 25 head of cattle are in the dam paddock and a first-aid kit and water are in the fire bunker.
The couple took turns last night to watch the fire bear down on their 70-hectare property off the Great Alpine Road near Harrietville.
A thin waft of smoke was floating through their land and Ms Kemp could see a big ball of smoke and the red of flame coming up through the trees.
Ms Kemp, a former marketing manager of the Bright Brewery, and Mr Kemp, who works at Bright’s library, were never going to leave.
They finished building their rendered straw bale home in 2001 and were looking to sell it.
“If I can stop it burning that’s a bit of my children’s livelihood.”
With the kids taken care of, Ms Kemp said it would take hours for a fire to burn through the thick rendered walls and if worse came to worse, she, her husband would disappear into a fire bunker on the property.
For now, she would watch the glow.
“This is the moment to have a quiet beer,” she said.