Firsthand experience of losing farm fences to fire motivates an Indigo Valley man in his campaign to help others affected.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Jamie Wolf saw his family farm, about 120 hectares, burned out in the Barnawartha fire of December 2015.
"Tractors melted, livestock was affected, not to mention every single fence that was on the property was completely gutted and burned, it melted the steel pickets," he said.
Asked by his father, Alex, to help out with fencing, Mr Wolf now knows he was a little naive about the task.
"I was thinking a week or two it will be done and dusted, but it ended up taking us 12 months virtually to rebuild and recover from the fencing aspect," he said.
"It's a never-ending job after a fire, because as of last week, Dad was still cutting trees off the fences that we'd fixed ... over time (the burnt trees) just weaken and fall."
IN OTHER NEWS:
Mr Wolf now wants to rebuild fences lost in this summer's fires and has already received great support through his Fencing For Fires Facebook page and GoFundMe appeal.
The latter has raised more than $5000 while the Facebook page has received more than 4500 likes.
Fencing For Fires has delivered its first load of supplies, including steel pickets, barbed wire and hay, to families in Biggara.
"A lot of the time there's so many people offering labour and machinery, but it's actually getting the fencing equipment, as in the gear to make the fences, which is the problem to start with because it's so expensive," Mr Wolf said.
He has been in touch with BlazeAid and Rotary, but Saturday's inaugural drop-off arose from a farmer contacting him.
"There is no right or wrong answer of where to start," Mr Wolf said.
"I'm doing a lot of research and just chatting around the traps.
"A lot of people are known to other people, it is a rural community, a lot of the names are known."
Visiting the Biggara farm showed the fire impact on livelihoods and the importance of fencing assistance.
"It will give them a leg-up to get back on their feet and to know that their cattle are going to be safe and locked in," he said.
"Because at the moment a lot of cattle are just roaming around on their own.
"Especially some of the dairies they have to be milked every day, so if they don't come back in by themselves or they can't round them all up it creates other problems."
Mr Wolf thanked people for their donations so far, with a Fencing For Fires website also being planned where requests for help and offers of assistance could be logged.