As fire roars towards the town of Yea, some residents dig in for battle

As wild bushfires engulf the town of Yea, Greg Barker says goodbye to his wife but isn’t sure if he’ll ever see her again.

The farmer stays in the brick house he has lived in for over 20 years and prepares for the fight of his life to protect his home.

It’s Friday afternoon, his wife Jacinta has packed up the car, and he’s backing out of the driveway to get away.

“Jacinta, you need to get out of here,” Barker tells his wife as the sky turns an ominous orange and the wind picks up and begins to howl.

The nearby town of Yarck is already engulfed in fires. Barker promises to stay safe. They exchange worried glances and say goodbye quickly.

Jacinta sets off for Seymour, hoping to get there before the roads are closed.

Thick, gray smoke surrounds the area. Yes, and almost every house on Barker’s street is empty.

Many of his neighbors were quickly evacuated after authorities warned that an out-of-control fire was moving south toward the town.

“I’m not afraid or anything, I’m just worried because we don’t know what this wind will do. What will it do when it reaches the edge of yes?” Barker says.

“Is it going to pass around us? Or is it going to pass above us?”

By late afternoon all the shops on Yea’s main street had closed except for petrol stations and the supermarket, which remained open for fire crews battling the rapidly growing inferno that was hurtling towards the town with sudden changes in the wind.

Barker is no stranger to fires. It’s had many battles over the years, including nearby Strathbogie, but these bushfires feel different.

“Some of the fires were pretty horrific, it was a similar sort of country – really rugged, rocky, steep country,” says Barker, who trained as a rural firefighter.

“We’ve had a few big grass fires here, but nothing like this. This was as bad as the Black Saturday fires of 2009, where the wind burned the backs of your legs.”

“But when you decide to stay, you stick with it.”

Many of Yea’s residents packed their cars and left the historic town, which was devastated by a devastating forest fire on January 8, 1969. The latest fires surrounding the town almost coincide with the day these fires broke out.

Barker has heavy-duty hoses at the ready and sprinklers running in front of his yard, ready to douse any flying embers that might rain down on his home.

The 67-year-old man has been on the phone all day with friends living in nearby fire-affected towns.

When we arrived, Barker was on the phone with a friend who had fled when the fires suddenly changed direction and began moving toward his home.

“He had decided to stay, then he called me and said, ‘The fire is heading straight for us, we have to leave now,'” Barker says as he hoses down the garden.

“The poor guy is probably going home tomorrow and his house is gone.”

As news spread that the bushfire was heading towards Yea, the area began to resemble a ghost town.

A sense of unease remained for those who decided to stay behind. Fire trucks speed down the main street and sirens blare in the distance.

The smell of smoke fills the air and the winds blow fiercely as Micky Rawling puts his horse, pony and calf into a small pasture.

He turns on some sprinklers and explains that he’s trying to create a swamp, a low-lying, wet area, to protect his beloved animals from wildfires.

“Things are getting a little confusing now,” he says. “But I decided to stay because I want to protect my home and the animals.”

A block away from Rawling, Paul Heyen pours buckets of water into his front yard.

He also decided to stay behind to protect the weatherproof home where he and his family have lived for more than 40 years.

His wife, their teenage son, their cat, and a young man and woman who couldn’t get out of town in time are housed inside.

Heyen, who is training as a volunteer firefighter in Tasmania, has a battery-powered hose ready to handle flying embers.

He has been closely watching the smoke from the fire move towards the back of his house for hours.

“We’re really worried about the way things are going right now,” he says. “I had heard before that the fire spread over an area of ​​about 100 kilometers and was really very dangerous.”

The father of three says many of his friends in the small nearby towns of Ruffy and Yarck have lost their homes.

“That was devastating to hear,” he says.

“I’ve been through a lot of fires here. That’s life in the country. The Black Saturday fires were awful, really bad. My kids lost a few friends in that fire, so they’re a little worried.”

Heyen says that if their house burned down, the family planned to flee to the small hospital across the road.

“But this is going to be a very long night,” he says.

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