“Salt on the wound” says local with fire threatening to scorch region

ABC NEWS (Australia)

Returning now to the fire situation in Victoria’s west, emergency warnings for the bushfire in the Grampians national park have been downgraded.  Numerous watch and acts remain in place for the fire which is expected to continue to burn for weeks. Diane Toulson owns a hotel in lake Bolac 20 kilometres from the fire. She evacuated last night and said it's a difficult time for the entire community.

Transcript

00:00Yes, it was an incredibly stressful day for everyone in the region, but especially for

00:07the small towns in the region as well. So yeah, it was an incredible thing unfolded

00:14throughout the course.

00:15Yeah, yeah. So I understand you've now safely evacuated, but your son has stayed behind

00:22at the hotel to look after it. Yeah. Are you a bit worried for him?

00:28Yeah, that's right. Yesterday, we got the red alert. So we decided to evacuate. We have

00:34young family, my son's children were there. And so everyone evacuated except for my son

00:42Troy and our chef Malky. They stayed on to cook 100 meals for the firefighters. And once

00:48those 100 meals were cooked and packed up and collected with bottles of water and soft

00:53drinks from the hotel, they then evacuated down to Mortlake.

00:59Wow, 100 meals for the firefighters. That's, wow, that's a lot of food. So what made you

01:05decide to take on this mammoth effort?

01:08I look, you know, we've been watching things unfold and how hard the firefighters work

01:16and a lot of the farmers in the area jump onto the crew for the CFA and have to leave

01:20their farms to go and fight the fires as well. So I think, you know, it just felt like the

01:25right thing to do. And, you know, getting food out to them and sustenance is so important

01:31considering what they're doing in the long hours and the hard work and the trauma that

01:35they face. Food is an incredible contribution. It's a small one, but it's an important one

01:41to keep them going.

01:42Well, I mean, that's very good of you. I mean, food is pretty expensive now of cost of living

01:45concerns and a lot of mouths to feed those firefighters. So how are your stockpiles of

01:49food and ingredients holding up?

01:54Look, we are well stocked. Normally our town will be thriving right now.

01:58We've had such a strong year in the area with frost damaging a lot of the crops.

02:06So the farmers have been struggling due to the loss of crops and the loss of income from

02:11the crops. And the town then struggles as well with the lack of work that the farmers

02:15normally provide for, you know, just people in the town, but also seasonal harvesters

02:22that come into the town. So economically, we were struggling anyway from the damage

02:27from the frost and the loss of income.

02:29But the bushfires have added salt into the wound for the farmers.

02:35Many farmers have been affected with burnt out fences and sheds, leaving livestock

02:41wandering around. Farmers have had to make difficult choices and leave their farms to

02:46go and fight the fires.

02:48And so what they urgently need right now is adjustment for the many sheep and cows that

02:56are not contained by any fencing.

02:59There's so much burnt out fencing in the area, moving down to Glen Thompson and

03:04Woolloora. So they've called out for adjustment anywhere in Victoria to take the

03:09animals to. So it's been an incredibly difficult time that has an ongoing effect for

03:16the community, not only financially, but for the workers and the farmers as well.

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