Wildfire got us. Two days burning. Firetrucks, airplanes, helicopters everywhere. They saved the villages and houses, all the bush and pasture went down. All the fence posts burned and will have to be replaced. I can’t water my garden today and hope that it will survive till tomorrow, when I hopefully can get a new water tube out there, after everything stops smouldering.

I took the animals to a safe place in time. Only the chickens got lost, I think. We will have to buy hay for the next months, all the standing hay went in the fire.

Two times in the last days I thought my house was lost, and once I thought my partner was lost - moments of great tension and despair, and now I realize how exhausted I am, from the emotion as much as from the running about, carrying water. In the early afternoon I just collapsed and half-slept for a few hours - if I had tried to continue doing something I’d have put myself in danger.

While I was writing this the undergrowth caught fire again, flames traveling towards my partners house. I heard the crackling, called the firemen and just waited in my house, and eventually even managed to recover enough energy to cook something. People must eat even when everything is on fire.

…

I found one of the chickens, but one was eaten by one of the dogs when trying to catch it again from where it had fled to (both animals were confused, shit happens). Everything around us has burned down, so we should be safe now. Tomorrow we will start to repair the damage. It is good to see how people work together through the crisis - local firefighting crews, firemen, neighbours and friends. Even the animals were mostly well behaved. We’ve had offers of help, and we feel we were lucky in all this. Nobody injured, no major damage.