'Nuked': Gelantipy farmers prepare to rebuild fences and fodder supplies

Work to mend the fences - including exclusion fencing to prevent wild dog attacks - is underway as livestock losses in the district were minimal, producers say.

Karoonda Park Hereford stud principal Paul Sykes, who runs a school camp with his wife Judy from their 730-hectare Gelantipy farm, lost 350 silage rolls, a set of yards and a hay shed on December 30.

In Gippsland, 508 sheep and 187 beef cattle have died as a result of the fires.

"We were feeding out our winter supplies because we get pretty cold here and require up to 1000 bales in winter," Mr Sykes said.

"So we're trying to put crops in to buff ourselves up against the winter a bit and of course now with all the fences down it's just hard to find time because you can't be everywhere."

Thirty kilometres of fencing at Mr Sykes' property was destroyed or compromised with the rebuild expected to take several years.

"We can't use our back paddocks and to physically get to these fences - a lot of which were pretty new fences - is going to take us a bloody long time," he said.

"The government needs to tell us pretty quickly what funding they're going to put towards boundary fences because roadside fences are an enormous issue for us."

Former Gelantipy Fire Brigade captain of 32 years and beef producer Keith Davies said one of his properties at Gelantipy West was extensively damaged.

"I've lost a quarter of my internal fences on this property and on the other side of the road where I live it's taken out all the fences ... there's no fences left on that property whatsoever," Mr Davies said.

"There's 640 acres on the home block and all but half-an-acre is gone ... around the home and sheds."

"We've lost 30-odd kilometres of fencing and that's going to take me a few years to finish it because there's a lot of steeper country and a lot of it you can't get a vehicle on."

Beef and sheep farmer Julie Rogers, whose family have farmed at Gelantipy since the 1920s, described the scenes after the blaze as "something from a war movie".

"We lost roughly 1800 acres out of the 2500 acres plus 14 kilometres of fencing that's been completely wiped out plus 360 rolls of silage," she said.

"Some of our bush has been annihilated, I say it's been nuked because there's just nothing left.

"The trees on my property towards the Snowy River are just blackened sticks."

Mrs Rogers and her daughter Amy Rogers defended their home property north of Gelantipy during the fires while son-in-law Alfred Hackett defended the second property closer to Butcher's Ridge.

"We had no one here to help us except ourselves but we kept radio contact all night with Alfred who was on his own," Mrs Rogers said.