What follows after a fire?

I’ve seen people turn up before they were asked. I’ve seen neighbours walk straight into devastation carrying nothing but the clothes on their back and a willingness to help. I’ve seen exhaustion, grief and shock, and alongside it, a deep instinct to look after one another.

That instinct is what carried this community through the first hours and days after the fires, when there was no time to wait and no certainty about what would come next.

One of the clearest examples of that came around a kitchen table in Longwood, just hours after the fires. We knew stock had survived but had nothing left to eat. We knew waiting wasn’t an option. From that conversation, a fodder response was born, not from a plan, but from urgency and trust. Within days, an estimated $2 million worth of fodder had been moved through our community and out to farmers who needed it to keep going.

That didn’t happen because of a system. It happened because people dropped everything and helped. Because families like the Tubbs opened their doors, their paddocks and their lives. Because volunteers showed up early, stayed late and kept showing up again the next day.

The same spirit has been everywhere. In the relief and recovery centres, staffed by volunteers who have sat with people through their worst moments. In depots and sheds where supplies were sorted, loaded and moved without fuss. In the quiet work of people making sure firefighters were fed, hydrated and cared for after days on the line.

Our CFA members deserve special recognition. They stood between our communities and far greater loss, often in dangerous conditions, often while worrying about their own homes and families. Many carried physical exhaustion and emotional weight that will linger long after the smoke clears. What they did matters, and it will not be forgotten.

I’ve also seen how this fire has taken deeply personal things from people. Not just buildings, but markers of life, the things that hold memory and meaning. I know that feeling myself. The land will heal. We will rebuild. But grief doesn’t follow a timetable, and neither does recovery.

What has stayed with me most is that no one has tried to do this alone. There have been tears. Long hugs. Very little sleep. A lot of adrenaline. And moments where the weight of it all has felt overwhelming. But there has also been resolve, a shared understanding that we keep going, together.

Recovery is far from over. There will be long days ahead. But if the past weeks have shown us anything, it’s that this community knows how to carry one another through hard things.

This is what community looks like. Not perfect. Not polished. But present. And that makes all the difference.