General News
16 January, 2026
Watching the fire remotely: Natimuk historian watches fire destroy homes via security cameras
WHEN Natimuk Historical Society president, Pat Ford, checked the temperature and wind increase early on January 9, he said he recognised the gravity of the conditions, and it was only a matter of minutes later that the alarm was raised.
“My weather station said it was 43 degrees ... over 50 kilometre winds, and it was 19 per cent humidity,” Pat said.
“Five minutes later, the siren went off.
“I said to (wife) Lisa – ‘right, go and pack your bag, we’ve got to get out of here,’ and she raced in to pack some things. I ran around and blocked all my gutters and put the hoses in the gutters to try and protect the house.
“By the time I'd blocked ... five down pipes, we were just getting completely rained on with embers and drove out in a hell of a hurry.”
But unlike many other locals who evacuated, Pat didn’t have to guess what was happening back in Natimuk.
“We’ve got a solar battery so the power went out, but our place was still live, and I've got security cameras, so we were sitting in the Horsham Sports and Community Club watching it all unfold,” he explained.
“A lot of our neighbours were in different places, texting us saying, ‘Can you see my house? Is it okay?’ ‘Yes, I can see your house'.
“But when I swung around, the ones that did go – although it was a sort of a bit in the distance for the cameras, all of a sudden, you see this big black bloom go really quickly up. ‘Oh no, there's a house gone.’ Scan around a bit. ‘Oh no, there's another one.’”
He said they returned at about 6pm to see how they could help friends in the evening – “technically I don't think we were supposed to, but knowing that … we had power ... it wasn't like we were going to be stranded”.
“We had people that we needed to come in and help, and so we were going around rescuing pets and things like that as well, the next day,” Pat said.
One of the additional tasks Pat said he was trying to do was document the fire as a secondary priority for the historical society, as he believed the fire would be talked about for generations, but he admitted it was “a bit of a challenge” when trying to be sensitive to the emotional side of people’s losses.
“I hate putting a camera in someone's face, which is a bit of an oxymoron for someone that is trying to do multimedia and video productions and stuff,” he said.
“I just find that so difficult to take photos of people and so forth ... especially in hard times.”
From a historical perspective, he was sad to see the loss of some of the older buildings.
“Paul Flaherty, (the) wool buyer over here at the old Western Motors - that went - and now, he lost everything in there,” Pat said.
“Then there's an old homestead on the north side of town, Fairview, that just got heritage listed ... and it burnt to the ground.”
But ultimately, Pat said it was gratifying there was no loss of life and to see the community respond.
“It's really brought the community closer together, that's for sure,” he said on Monday.
“Last night, we went to the pub, and there were so many people from different parts of the community ... and everyone was embracing, and that's been quite fantastic to see everyone pulling back together after all the issues around the mountain (Arapiles) before.
“Just to see also that, over the days, everyone trying to help each other, and so many people feeling helpless ... or don't feel like they're helping – but they are really doing that little bit. It's been quite amazing.”
He said he was only just beginning to assess how it had affected him personally, but nevertheless, there was one prominent community member he was especially concerned about.
“We've been both a bit (like) stunned mullets today, Lisa and I, trying to come to terms with everything,” Pat said.
“I still need to get and clean my place up, but I just haven't, because I've been sort of too concerned with just walking around and checking on everyone else. Hopefully, today I might get motivated to look at myself and see how we're going.
“But one of the ones that hit me the most, which probably made me the most emotional, was mayor, Brian Klowss. He's lost something like 75 per cent of his property, and he's running around trying to support the community and the council and everything.
“You know, that just made me feel so sorry, because he's gonna fall apart if we're not careful. So, I was talking to the council and said, ‘Look, you know, we gotta make sure we wrap our arms around Brian and look after him, because he's running on adrenaline still.’
“He'll have years of pain from that … it's very personal for him, as well as his community.”
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