Ground Survey of the Daylesford Fires.

Nearly ten days after the Bush Fires broke out in the Wombat State Forest near Daylesford, a group of friends and family decided that it was time to go back to Daylesford and see if there was anything we could do to help clean up. The Farm at Daylesford had been fully burnt out by the fire but remarkably, it did not damage the buildings. The fencing will need to be replaced, however there is a government funded program that will provide assistance in the replacement. So in the end there was not much for us to do. I had been in contact with a good friend of mine Tibor Hegedis, who does work for the local animal shelter as a volunteer, and he had expressed an interest in taking a 4×4 tour of the burnt out section of the Wombat State Forest. He wanted to document the devastation photographically. All access to the State Forest had been cut off until the day before, so we were entering into the Forest at the earliest possible time. The day prior, a good amount of rain had fallen so the conditions were a little slippery but relatively safe. I certainly didn’t want to put myself or Tibor at risk so we acted very cautiously. We drove around the burnt out section of Jubilee Lake and headed up to Paddy’s Point. From there, we traveled down some of the fire trails to investigate some of the more remote sections of the park. This is the same area I drove through only recently in January. It looks utterly different now! In several places, we found stumps that were very much still burning and in the photos below, you can see Tibor extinguishing them. These photo’s represent my record of the event. Cheers.