Residents 'shattered' after losing family relics in bushfire

Saturday, 10 January 2026 20:01

After an out-of-control bushfire tore through a small township in Victoria, residents returned to find relics of their family history completely lost.

After the largest of the out-of-control bushfires currently burning in Victoria tore through a small township, residents returned to find relics of their family history completely lost.

The Longwood fire yesterday destroyed several properties, including homes and an almost 150-year-old school, in Ruffy.

Some residents were able to make it back into town to see what was left today, but the roads are still being affected by falling branches and smouldering trees.

Jamie and Ann Laherty-Hunt's home of more than a decade was gone when the fire quickly approached Ruffy.

Jamie and Ann Laherty-Hunt's home of more than a decade was gone when the fire quickly approached the town.

"It was a freight train just coming at us from over there," Jamie said.

"When it came, it came. Everyone uses the word ferocious, and it really kind of is," Ann said.

The Laherty-Hunts are nurses as well as volunteer firefighters. They were on the frontline trying to save the town when they were forced to defend their own property.

"All of our family history, like from when my parents, I got all their stuff, it was all in there, and having to stand here and watch all of it go up. That was really hard," Ann said.

"You feel numb like it's not us, it's happening to someone else. And then you're sad.

"And the sadness is going to be what comes over the next few days, I'm sure, you just realise how much we've lost."

"We're having waves of the emotion, but we haven't got time for it," Jamie said.

And they're not the only ones.

In Longwood East, Warrick O'Donnell faced similar heartbreak after he managed to save his home with sprinklers but lost sentimental items.

"Pretty shattered, because a lot of my father's tools and his father's tools," he said.

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