Angus McGillivery’s Garvoc property was burnt out in the 1983 Ash Wenesday fires and was burnt out again on Saturday night.
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Mr McGillivery. 65, said he felt numb as he sifted through the wreckage of his four-bedroom weatherboard home on Monday.
“Two times is too many,” he said.
“I know my wife does not want to come back,” Mr McGillivery said.
“I’m going through a grieving process,” he said.
Mr McGillivery, his wife Heather and their five children aged from eight to 22 years old were at home on the farm on Coyles Lane about 10pm on Saturday when they went on to a verandah and saw the glow from the Terang fire.
With the wind blowing fiercely from the west pushing the blaze away from them, they thought they were not in imminent danger.
However they got out of their pyjamas and into wool clothing to travel to a safe area.
When they next emerged from the house, they saw the glow from another fire at The Sisters fire behind them in the north-west.
“It came so fast.” Mr McGillivery said.
They only had time to grab their wallets and they “drove out through a fireball of flames” before the main front of The Sisters fire raced through.
The family stayed at his sister’s place in Terang on Saturday night and returned on Sunday to a blackened site of twisted metal with none of the house left standing apart from a chimney.
Of his 202 hectare (500 acres) farm on which he ran about 1000 cross-bred ewes for lamb and wool production, there’s not much left with which to make the property productive.
He believes he has lost all but about 60 of his 1000 sheep.
“There’s no fencing on the place.
“Most of the water supply is destroyed,” Mr McGillivery said.
Numerous farm machinery and vehicles have also been burnt out.
However he said he was prepared to start again.
“But it will not be with sheep,” Mr McGillivery said.
Another badly hit by The Sisters fire is dairy farmer Brad Porter who lost more than 300 cows when about 300 hectares (750 acres) of his farm was burnt on Saturday night.
Mr Porter also lost decades of work improving the genetics of his Jersey herd.
He said he was “gutted” by the loss of his cows, whom he considered “his mates.”
He has already sent about 200 to the Midfield abattoir, about 18 to the knackery and has to bury dozens more.
He said improving his herd had been “his passion, his life.”
However he was keen to move forward from the disaster and was grateful that he and his loved ones were still alive.
He and his wife Heather were in Tasmania when they were contacted that their property had been hit by fire.
He said that if he had been on the property, he feared he would have been “cooked with the cows” trying to save them.
Mr Porter expressed his gratitude for the overwhelming support he has received from his neighbours and the wider community that had enabled him to resume milking the cows he has left.
He said he had received 60 calls offering assistance between 7am and 11.40am on Monday.
