While fire-affected families battle with bureaucratic red tape, the outpouring of charitable and practical help from service clubs, businesses and individuals from far and wide has been titanic.

During The News’ March 10 visit to the Tablelands Fire Recovery Hub in Ruffy, $10,000 worth of Makita power tools were delivered from Gippsland to be distributed to farmers in need in the area.

Three staff from The Toolshed Bar, Bistro and Cabins in Noojee, which had hosted a fundraiser for the cause, had personally delivered the haul, telling us they were inspired to help because there had been a long history of bushfires in their own area.

Rotary, Kiwanis, CWA, CFA, SES and many other service groups and organisations, local and non-local businesses and several individuals form the army of helpers marching to support those impacted by the January bushfire.

BlazeAid’s Euroa Showgrounds camp has seen 488 local, interstate and international volunteers working to rebuild fences in the area so far since it was set up soon after the fire, Lions Club of Australia’s Need for Feed project brought 2000 bales of hay to 180 properties on Labour Day weekend and the Rapid Relief Team donated and delivered 215km of fencing wire a couple of weeks earlier.

“All of those groups have all been absolutely amazing,” hub volunteer Coll Furlanetto said.

Overwhelmed by the support and certain she would miss some, Mrs Furlanetto said there were too many donors to list, but that recipients were grateful for them all.

While donations have flooded in thick and fast, it’s been a logistical challenge for those tasked with distributing them.

“We need systems in place around who gets what, you know, Harry got some and Bob got some last time, but then you have to make sure that old Dick who lives over the hill and hasn’t got anything, gets something,” Mrs Furlanetto said.

“So it’s about trying to be fair and spread it.

“Whether it’s gift vouchers, you need to have a process or an assessment tool to make it more transparent and a good solid basis for who gets what and why, whether it is something that’s worth a lot or something that’s not.”

The community is meeting regularly to plan the next phases of recovery and work out who will take on those kinds of roles.

“We’re just wanting to put the feelers out to community, talk about what governance of this could look like,” Mrs Furlanetto said.

“Do we form a subcommittee under an existing group that’s already here in Ruffy or surrounds or something different on its own, because there’s always funding and grants and all of that that we really need to think about."

Some volunteers at the hub have been assisting community members with their individual claims for government assistance.

Help from the government and insurance companies hasn’t been as easy to obtain as it has from kind-hearted clubs and individuals, Mrs Furlanetto said.

“It’s a vast, vast space and a vast, expensive impact on roads and bridges and roadsides and then on private lands.

“Everybody’s under-insured, whether you were insured or under-insured and didn’t know you were under-insured, everybody’s under-insured,” she said.

Some property owners reported feeling like they’d have been better off uninsured because then they might have gotten the help they needed.

“We have firefighters who lost their homes, but don’t qualify for the evacuation payment because they were on the fire truck fighting and saving someone else’s house while their own house burnt,” Mrs Furlanetto said.

“The government response is too slow, and local government need more money to be able to do what they need to do.

“They’re hamstrung, they cannot spend what they don’t have, to a certain point they can, but I understand that, I’ve been a local government representative.

“But at the same time, leadership needs to happen without being prescriptive; get in and get your hands dirty and help as one, and that goes for all levels of government.”

Mrs Furlanetto said tempers had flared, patience had thinned and people impacted were feeling exhausted.

“We’re all in a hurry, we all want the new fence, we all want to get it up, but you can’t do it all at once, but we can’t do it without the resource, so we need to acknowledge that that resource is needed,” she said.

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Tuesday, 13th February 2029

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