It’s approaching four months since the devastating bushfires caused massive destruction in East Gippsland.
The fire’s intensity and the obliteration of hundreds of homes across the region shocked the community to its core.
Vast areas of bushland were burnt and livestock also succumbed to the fire inferno.
East Gippsland was still on tenterhooks after pictures of holidaymakers trapped in Mallacoota beamed around the world.
Only a few days later as the region stumbled into the new dawn of 2020, fire chiefs warned that a repeat catastrophe could unfold on Saturday, January 4.
Many, caught in the eye of the firestorm, wondered if the earth was unraveling.
Ellaswood residents, Michael and Lou Canly, remember those first few days of January like it was yesterday.
Tucked away on Ellaswood Road, the couple’s property is surrounded by beautiful tall gums.
It’s an idyllic setting.
Like many residents that live in the area, they dutifully attended a meeting at the Mt Taylor CFA fire station on January 3 to hear about the conditions forecast for the following day.
What unfolded remains etched in Michael Canley’s memory as he describes the scenes of panic.
“It was pandemonium. There were hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people,” Michael recalled as locals attended for the briefing conducted by DELWP and local CFA Captain, Geoff Crane.
People were crammed around the CFA shed straining to hear what the fire officials were saying.
“It was pretty blunt, they basically said here’s the fire map, here’s the fire, here’s Bairnsdale and they basically drew a line through Wy Yung-Eastwood Road down to the Italian Club (Bairnsdale Sporting and Convention Centre) and said anything north of that line the fire could impact,” Michael said.
According to Michael the fire chiefs stated they wouldn’t have appliances out there but would be pulling them all back south of that line to protect Bairnsdale and Eastwood, “so you’re on your own”.
“People were just flabbergasted because they’ve said everything north of the line they expect to be impacted by fire and there was nothing they could do to stop it,” Michael said.
“So if you want to leave, leave now, leave this meeting and go home and leave, there’s nothing we can do to help you.”
Michael said many people were so confronted by the news that some people burst into tears.
Michael said he looked at the faces of some of the CFA guys in their office as he left the Mt Taylor CFA and described their demeanors as akin to being at a funeral.
“A couple of the guys have properties just up here and they were absolutely devastated knowing what was going to happen,” Michael said.
Michael said fire officials vowed to build firebreaks around as many properties as possible in preparation for a potential onslaught of the fire.
Captain Crane told the Advertiser “that we had to be fairly blunt with people because the threat was there and it was real”.
“We were fortunate to have dodged a couple of bullets with the wind change,” Cpt Crane said.
That wind change effectively blew the fire back on itself, pushing it back into burnt country, which Cpt Crane said worked in the CFA’s favor.
Michael and Lou had already secured themselves a storage unit in Bairnsdale fearing the worst of the fires that had ravaged East Gippsland in the final days of 2019 wasn’t over yet.
Following the Mt Taylor CFA shed meeting, they went home and began packing up more of their possessions to place in the storage facility.
As he left Ellaswood with a ute and trailer full of possessions and started to head towards Bairnsdale, Michael described the scene as chaotic.
“When we left to take the first load down, you couldn’t get out. There were just cars everywhere, people with trailers with goats and chickens and sheep in the back of the ute.
“People were more worried about their livestock and there were cars going everywhere.
“A lot of the livestock was taken to the saleyards,” Lou said, explaining that when the saleyards became full people took their animals to the racecourse.
“There was literally hundreds of cars and trailers on the road full of crap and people’s animals, their chickens, their goats and their horses,” Michael said.
“People had no worries about whether their loads were legal or not.”
“If it was tied down, it was lucky,” Lou said.
“You were driving down the road and you were thinking was is that? And there’d be something hanging out of someone’s ute, like an old mattress, and then they’ve got a trailer on the back with three calves.”
Lou described it as a scene straight out of the Beverley Hillbillies.
The Canleys continued to ferry their possessions to the storage unit until about 9pm on the Friday.
“We were packing what we needed to survive on if there was no house,” Lou said.
“I packed a tent and a blowup mattress and deck chairs and a little cook stove because I thought I don’t know what’s going to happen after this,” Michael said.
“I was just going into survival mode, like this is the end of the world.”
Exhausted Michael set up fire hoses, turned off the gas and shut up the house before staying at his mother’s house in Eastwood. Lou had taken the couple’s two dogs to Eagle Point where she stayed with friends.
The next day they spent the day anxiously waiting for news their house had been wiped out, but it never happened.
The couple moved back home that weekend but decided to leave their possessions in storage until they were sure the summer fire threat had passed.
Michael describes the month of January as “feeling like a whole year”.
IMAGE: Lou and Michael Canley at home at their Ellaswood property with dog, Loki, earlier this month. K274-5723
