Last night, Tammy Woodgate ate for the first time since the fires hit Buchan on New Year's Eve.
And although her husband is out shooting injured cattle and sheep, there has not yet been time to count their losses.
Ms Woodgate knew the fire was coming and her family had a carefully considered plan: to save her mother-in-law's house and the hay shed.
Her own home as well as those of her parents and sister were secondary.
It took the frantic efforts of Ms Woodgate, her husband, brother-in-law, niece and two friends to keep the fast-moving grass fire at bay.
At about 2.30am when things had settled a little at the main homestead, Ms Woodgate and her family drove through blackened paddocks to check on her house in the township.
"We drove to the top of the hill, which towers over Buchan," Ms Woodgate said.
"And I've never seen anything like that in my life.
"It was just like another world; in every single direction, it was just on fire."
Certain the whole town was on fire, the family returned to patrol Ms Woodgate's mother-in-law's house to extinguish spot fires created by embers that arrived with the wind change.
"We didn't sleep - we couldn't," she said.
"We laid around on the grass and on chairs, half asleep but half awake.
"We just listened to the UHF.
"We had phone reception for a long time, which was awesome, it was sort of comforting.
"You could ring each other see how each other were going."
The next morning, phone reception was lost and was not restored until yesterday.
The only communication was by UHF radio.
And while her house in town was spared, as was her sister's, Ms Woodgates parent's home was lost, along with four or five houses in Buchan.
The fate of about 80 cattle at another property at Jackson's Crossing is still unknown.
"I've lost my shearing sheds, machinery sheds, all my sheep yards and every fence that we own and we've got nearly two-and-a-half-thousand acres," Ms Woodgate said.
"We've shot 12 cattle so far and there's still more to be shot and we're also shooting sheep as they deteriorate."
The family has about 150 head of cattle and another 150 sheep left.
"The drought affected us massively, so we've actually only got half our herd of cattle anyway," she said.
"We started buying the sheep in as a quick turnover for some income and look what's happened to me now.
"I don't know how you recover, I really, really don't.
"It's just doing my head in at the moment, I try not to think about it, because we've got a debt from feeding cattle.
"And that's why we've been burnt so bad - because I only have half my herd, I had a lot more feed than most people."
Two semi-trailer loads of hay arrived today and were unloaded at Ms Woodgate's hayshed, where local herds are mingling as a single mob that she is feeding.
Anticipating that the unscathed area around Buchan South will be most vulnerable tomorrow, Ms Woodgate has spent the day shifting livestock and horses to burnt areas.
"The stock aren't being overly cooperative about being yarded, everything seems to be stressed," she said.
"It's hard to use the dogs for working because they're knocking up really quickly because the smoke's just so, so thick."
To cap it all off, Buchan township is also out of water and the volunteers who have been cooking food have been ordered out of the area.
"The football pavilion is just full of donations, like all your toiletries and clothes are down there.
"There's phenomenal amount of stuff - dog food, water - they have been really looking after us but they've got to go and you can understand it."
Gelantipy moonscape
Ironically, the blackened paddocks of Amy Rogers' family farm at Gelantipy offer hope for tomorrow.
Ms Rogers, her mother Julie and partner Alfred Hackett are determined to defend their property once again if the fires come close over the weekend.
"We won't leave our stock," she said.
"If we leave and we can't get back, they could be a week without us.
"We can't do that to them."
While the fire threat remained very real, the risks the Rogers face were relatively low.
There's not much left to burn.
The blaze that tore through on Monday afternoon took all the standing feed they had and decimated the forest.
"A lot of our paddocks were really bare, obviously, because we're in drought," Ms Rogers said.
"Anything with a bit of standing feed has pretty much burnt and what hasn't burnt is pretty much bare anyway."
And that's perhaps the Rogers' greatest challenge.
The family must feed its 230 cows and calves, 130 replacement heifers and 1200 crossbred ewes.
"I'm worried about the health of the animals," Ms Rogers said.
"They've lived through the fire but how's it all going to affect them long term?
"We want to sell all our lambs and get rid of some of the calves but there's still unburnt country below us that is probably going to go up tomorrow, so we could still be another week without road access for trucks to get stock out."
The plan for tomorrow was simple.
"There could be spot fires - ash and burnt leaves are falling at the moment," Ms Rogers said.
"So we'll be patrolling for spot fires tomorrow around the hay and any grass we've got left as well as protecting our house and stock again.
"We're not in any way the worst affected people out there.
"You've just got to keep positive - what else do you do?
"We're probably lucky, we're young.
"I know people who just said they can't do it again; they've done it before, they're not fighting it again.
"The drought was hitting us pretty hard and this is going to wreck some people, I think.
"If we don't get any rain from now, what's going to happen?"
The helpers
Ahead of tomorrow's dangerous fire conditions, donations of rural supplies like dog food and fencing units, have trickled through to farmers at Buchan.
A police-escorted convoy of utes and a truck made the dash after people visiting Elders Maffra donated about $10,000-worth of goods.
Livestock agent Nicky Reeves coordinated the relief effort and said she was proud of the people of Maffra.
"If cattle have nothing to eat, you've got to feed them," Ms Reeves said.
"These poor buggers have been buying feed for three years.
"I don't think we're jumping the gun, these were essentials: fodder, electric fence units to contain stock, water and feed troughs.
"They're just in survival mode.
"All their feed is gone."
Ms Reeves said that while the affected farmers were very grateful for the assistance, it was essential that support was there long term.
"These fires aren't over and they're not going to be over until we get six to 10 inches of rain or it burns right to the coast," she said.
"The farmers and people of East Gippsland are going to have to live with this for probably a couple of months yet."