Bushfires wipe town off the map
An entire township has been all but “wiped out” by devastating bushfires in Victoria’s southeast.
Tonimbuk, which borders Bunyip State Park, was in the direct path of a massive fire that has swept through the region.
A map of the area from the Country Fire Authority shows a large section of black over the township.
Herald Sun cartoonist Mark Knight is from Tonimbuk, 70km from the centre of Melbourne. He told 3AW radio yesterday that he spent the weekend trying to protect the family property but “the place has just been wiped clean”.
Network 10 journalist Candice Wyatt tweeted: “It’s believed the township of Tonimbuk has been all but wiped off the map.”
At the last census, Tonimbuk was home to 208 people. Winemaker Andrew Clarke is among them.
As bushfires ripped through the region, he could do nothing but stare at a screen in horror and disbelief at what he was watching on live TV.
He was at a cafe with other locals who had managed to escape the inferno engulfing their homes when he saw the aerial footage of his Tonimbuk vineyard explode into a ball of flames.
The Jinks Creek Winery was not just his life’s work. It was his family home and also home to his horses.
He’d left it all behind late on Saturday and got out with his wife and kids. Clarke even defied orders to rescue his two dogs, Blue and Pappy. But that was all he could do.
“We’re homeless,” Clarke told the Australian.
“It’s gone, the house too, it’s all gone. We’ve got horses, they’re probably dead.”
He told the Age that he was the first winemaker to plant a vineyard in West Gippsland in the 1970s after he received the second-ever winemaking scholarship from the Victorian Wine Industry Association in 1979. “I planted that winery myself and put the first vines in back in 1979,” he said.
The Doreen Country Fire Authority shared a video from Bunyip State Park after the main front had passed on Saturday night. Footage, filmed on fireman Matt Stoneham’s dashcam, showed trees glowing in the dark as embers flew from either side of the vehicle.
The Bunyip State Park fire, burning 65km east of Melbourne, was sparked by lightning strikes on Friday and has destroyed more than 10,000 hectares.
There are around 19 other fires still burning across Victoria.