A COUPLE of bare paddocks were all that stood in the way of a fast-moving grass fire raging on to become a major inferno near Henty.
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The blaze started, at first unnoticed, in the peak of a hot and blustery day that had all the hallmarks of a disaster.
About 1pm, near an abandoned Munyabla farm house on the property of Peter and Alison Campbell, a branch from a pine tree split in the wind and brought down an electrical wire.
That started a fire which raced across a large stubble-filled paddock to a band of bush lining both sides of Ryan Road.
Climbing up to the tree tops, the fire jumped the dirt track and started razing a path towards the home of farmer and Munyabla fire captain Daniel Klemke.
Finally it encountered some paddocks that had been gnawed bare by sheep, a lucky break Mr Klemke said allowed them to cut it off that the slowed fire and contain it at its sides.
“If there was wheat stubble (in the paddock) we would be still fighting it now,” a relieved Mr Klemke said yesterday evening.
The volunteer firefighter said when he found out about the approaching fire, he sent his wife and four children away in the car and rounded up sheep in its path.
He said it is the closest he’s ever come to losing the house.
Across this distinct, most property owners are part of the Rural Fire Service – knowing that if they don’t save their farms no one will.
Fire crews will remain on the scene of the fire, keeping watch on 80 hectares of burnt ground, until later today at the earliest.
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