The not-for-profit organisation, BlazeAid, which has been working in East Gippsland’s bushfire affected areas for more than nine months, is preparing to leave the area.
BlazeAid has been a blessing for farmers in restoring fences that were burnt in the bushfires.
They were among the first charities on the ground working with farmers to erect fences to keep livestock contained.
Working with a large group of volunteers, which predominantly included grey nomads and backpackers, BlazeAid worked seven days a week in the worst affected areas.
They set up base camps in Wulgulmerang (near Gelantipy), Omeo, Cann River, Buchan, Ensay and Bruthen.
The Bruthen camp was among the most active repairing boundary and roadside fences throughout a large area, which bore the brunt of the fires.
BlazeAid founder, Kevin Butler, told the Advertiser ”We could go on forever”.
Mr Butler said that re-establishing farms and helping farmers “to get back on their own two feet” had been the aim of the assistance. “We started in February and it’s been very hard work,” Mr Butler said.
“If we didn’t have the volunteers, who don’t get paid, we would have been buggered.”
Mr Butler said the work also provided the backpackers with purpose following the fires, who otherwise would have been in limbo once coronavirus hit and likely forced to return to their homelands.
“They would have had no work and nowhere to go,” Mr Butler said.
The cost to BlazeAid to run a base is about $4000 a week.
The organisation also supplied the posts and wires as well.
Mr Butler said the establishment of the Bruthen base camp had “put about $3 million into the local community”.
Coordinator of the Bruthen base camp, David Geekie, from Newport in Melbourne, told the Advertiser the camp would close at the end of the month when BlazeAid’s lease expired on the football ground facilities and the part of the adjoining caravan park.
Mr Geekie, who took over as coordinator of the camp in July, said the Bruthen camp had been responsible for erecting more than 170 kilometres of fencing at 180 properties.
About 212 properties registered for new fencing and Mr Geekie said a few more would be done before the program wound up.
Mr Geekie was full of praise for the volunteers and said the intergenerational mix had worked well together.
Backpackers, Nargis Kurtkaya from Austria, and Evan Kennedy from Ireland, have enjoyed being able to help locals affected by the bushfires.
While both had to contribute 88 days of farm work in order to extend their visas in Australia, Mr Kennedy said it had been rewarding work from a personal perspective.
“I’ve done salad farming and tree planting previously, but with this work, you actually feel like you are doing something that matters,” he said.
Mr Kennedy, who has degrees in economics and finance after spending five years at university in Ireland, said he was also very proud to have been made a team leader.
Ms Kurtkaya, who came to Australia from Austria for a gap year after earning a degree in political science, agreed the volunteer work had been “very satisfying“.
The pair, who met while in Australia, has been living in a plastic survival shelter under cover at the Bruthen football ground.
Mr Geekie said at its peak there were 100 volunteers camped at the ground but COVID had changed everything and because of restrictions only 20 people had remained in the camp.
He said local volunteers had then stepped in to make up the workforce and their contribution had been greatly appreciated.

IMAGE:
BlazeAid volunteers on the job in Sarsfield yesterday. The crew will pack up camp at the end of the month having spent nine months rebuilding fences across the region.