<
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2026/jan/11/it-was-calm-and-then-just-hectic-david-rigby-couldnt-escape-the-longwood-bushfire-so-faced-the-inferno>
"On the outskirts of Yarck, a small farming town in central Victoria, the
ground is still smouldering. Gumtrees are flickering with flames as white ash
whips through the air.
Across the region houses are reduced to warped steel, with brick chimneys often
the only thing left standing.
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 – it’s still standing.
“I was actually preparing to leave at 10am yesterday,” Rigby says on Sunday. “I
went down the street to talk to my neighbours, they had just gone to leave, but
by that time, you just couldn’t get out. All the roads were cut.”
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.
“I was stressed,” he says. “The wind was just howling through here. You
couldn’t see because of the smoke. The trees were just bent over.”
Yarck’s Country Fire Authority members had been an hour north, in Longwood,
where the bushfire started. They’d been forced back, and back, until they were
defending their own homes.
Rigby points to the nearby hills, noting neighbours’ 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.
“We were pinched in the middle of it,” he says. “You could just see flames from
the ridge line, all through down here. It was calm, calm, calm, and then just
hectic.”
As bushfires continued to burn across Victoria, residents who evacuated want to
return home. But authorities first need to make sure it’s safe."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
