'It was burning away': CFA volunteer fights fire as his house burns

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CFA volunteer Tyrone Rice fought the Ravenswood South fire as his own house burned down.   Video by Darren Howe

Transcript

00:00So on Friday I was at work and there was a call at Castlemaine for Structurefly

00:06in Jingles Street, so I responded from work and our tankers arrived on scene as well,

00:12tankers one and two, and then when we departed from there,

00:16Castlemaine had another call out for the grass right there on the power station with us flat,

00:21so our vehicles responded to there and I trolled along in my youth

00:28and then after a short period of time, of course the foggies got fire started,

00:35so Harcourt tankers one and two were then reallocated to that fire.

00:40I stayed at Winters Flat for a short while and then went back to the Castlemaine fire station,

00:46now Alexander Group headquarters, to lend assistance there.

00:51And then David Murdoch, the group officer, actually requested me to go to his place

00:59to try and get an overview of what the fire was doing when I arrived roughly at his place

01:04and could look up the Harcourt Valley and see all the smoke with no fire front.

01:10Quickly done a walk around my property and then went to the Harcourt fire station to see what I could do there.

01:16There was a couple of our members were there setting up filler hoses ready for trucks to come back

01:22and then I said well we'll get the generator out because there's no power

01:26and we set that up and then waited for trucks to arrive.

01:29When they did arrive there was some quick crew changeovers

01:34and I was very very very united with my wife who was on Harcourt tanker too.

01:40And after a while I got a phone call from my sister-in-law saying the fire was in our paddock next to our house.

01:49So I said to Roman we need to get our property to see what we can do.

01:55And unfortunately not long after she rang back and said our house was on fire

02:02when we were actually in Coolstore Road by that stage and Coolstore Road was blocked

02:08and the fire was impacting where the big Coolstores are and could not get through.

02:12So then we sheltered the Coolstores and assisted the brigades that were there.

02:18And while we were there there was my wife come across a lady walking with two dogs

02:25that was trying to find her way back to Eagles Road.

02:27So my wife got her and got her to a safe place within part of the Coolstore complex

02:33until the brigades that were there could organise her safe removal.

02:38It was a little while after that we were able to then go to catch up with my brother and sister-in-law

02:48across the road from our place.

02:50We were able to run their drive with the Neustad Brigade.

02:55And that was our first view of our house.

03:00The status that it was burning away.

03:03And yeah but anyway we were all safe.

03:06And then so we got my brother and sister-in-law into a FCV to get them back to the Cuffman fire station

03:14and we followed.

03:15Yeah it was okay but the fire didn't know.

03:18Okay again let's try them in after the auto-energ Chapman fire station

03:20reached up I high field in the going up he waso.

03:29It was pretty clear to be near a few weeks ago in our city where you were thinking of

03:34and you have had some people I had to run down for right now.

03:37And it was a little east.

03:39But it was three weeks ago so it was very long suggestion they get that point of

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