News

‘It doesn’t matter what colour shirt you’re wearing’

By Bree Harding

Jan 13, 2026

The Longwood fire had so far burnt through 136,000 hectares of land on Monday. Elders have stepped up to help provide relief to those affected. This image was taken in the Gooram area.

Hannah Speers was en route elsewhere from her home, Adelong, in NSW, but instead detoured to Euroa to help her southern colleagues.

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“I’ve experienced all this before in the Riverina Highlands in NSW in 2020,” the Elders state operations manager said.

“All agents join together. It doesn’t matter what colour shirt you’re wearing, we all pull together, it’s what we do.”

Euroa’s Elders depot was taking delivery of donated fodder, dog food, water, bread and milk to distribute to fire-affected families when The News visited on January 12.

“The community are donating fencing gear and cash,” Ms Speers said.

“We’re passing it on to Blaze Aid, who will hopefully be setting up a camp in the area in the next few days.”

Staff from various local and nearby Elders divisions pitched in to help while the phone rang regularly and vehicles came and went.

Others had come from Gippsland and Albury, despite the latter location currently having its own severe fire-related challenges.

“There’s not as many staff here as there is there, so they’ve come to help,” Ms Speers said.

Her aim was to relieve some pressure from the local crew by taking care of “some of the back-end stuff” to free them up for the increased workload that comes with assisting a community’s recovery from a natural disaster in an emergency.