Residents of a small Victoria township returned to find the remnants of their family legacies erased after the largest bushfire currently ravaging the region swept through the area.
The devastating Longwood fire obliterated multiple properties in Ruffy yesterday, including several homes and a school with nearly 150 years of history.
While some residents managed to revisit their town today to assess the damage, their progress was hindered by roads cluttered with fallen branches and smoldering trees.
Among those affected were Jamie and Ann Laherty-Hunt, whose home of over ten years was reduced to ashes as the fire rapidly advanced on the town.
“It approached like a freight train from over there,” Jamie recounted.
“When it hit, it was as everyone describes—utterly ferocious,” Ann added.
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.
