Buchan couple to start over after fires

Not much survived the blaze which destroyed their home of 24 years.

A cast iron crepe pan, a kettle and somehow plates still in the dish rack - washed only hours before the house was burnt - moulded together from the intensity of the fire.

"The more I come out the more depressed I get about it all," Mrs McCole said.

"I find every time I come out you find something else that was burnt and you remember what it looked like."

Mr McCole, a second generation farmer and Vietnam veteran who was wounded in action by a land mine in April 1971, described the fire as the "first real disaster we've had in our lives".

"I've been here since I was a little kid and we've worked for this from the beginning," Mr McCole.

"We recently got it to where we wanted the house and farm to be and now most of it's gone but we have each other so I guess we'll just start over again."

The McColes made the decision to leave their property on the afternoon of December 30 after the fire started to spot in nearby paddocks, aware they would be unable to defend their property on their own.

"We've got crown land to the south of us and crown land to the north of us and when it got on fire it met in the middle and our place was just unfortunately in the line of fire," Mr McCole said.

"If we had have waited another 10 minutes to leave I don't think we would have made it.

"Fire was just everywhere and no one could fight it because it was just going in different directions."

The McColes' wool and machinery sheds survived the fire.

Their sons Warren 'Hilly' McCole and Aaron McCole agist some of the land from their parents and said the farm's wild dog and deer exclusion fencing had been extensively damaged by fire.

"The dog attacks are just constant here, and on the part I lease there's about five kilometres of fencing that needs urgent attention," Hilly said.

"Fortunately we only lost four out of 300-head of sheep as a result of the fires but three days after the fire we had a couple of lambs killed here by wild dogs.

"We can use battery solar units to power the fences at the moment and without mains power they're not as good so it's just one thing after another."

Mr McCole said crown land adjacent to his property had been slated for hazard reduction burns in the months leading up to the fire.

"I first requested a [hazard reduction] burn 3.5 years ago and in August a bloke put a sign on the tree which said between the 1^st of September and the 31^st of October burning would proceed in the area," he said.

"It wasn't done and here we are.

"I was told it got too dry but to start off it was too wet and somewhere in the middle is Goldilocks' porridge where it's just right."