A stroll along the main road of Ruffy 20 days after the Longwood bushfire raged through it is nothing short of shocking.
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Piles of rubble where buildings once stood consist of buckled iron, twisted steel and exposed concrete slabs.
Asbestos caution tape seals many piles off.
The oak trees that line the road are now black and brown, the latter not a pretty autumn hue, but a dried and crisp bouquet of dead leaves.
It doesn’t smell like smoke, but the burnt smell is unmistakable.
The former primary school (1886-2005) lies in blackened tatters, where just weeks before the building’s ‘new’ purpose as the Tablelands Community Centre was hosting yoga, playgroups and community gatherings.
The Ruffy Store, a destination diner, and the town’s only ‘watering hole’, which had closed during COVID-19 times, but was for sale in the hopes of a revival, is no longer standing.
The Telstra exchange was destroyed beyond repair.
The Ruffy veggie club, pumpkin patch and local produce exchange are in ruins.
The old Ruffy Garage, which contained several old vehicles, was burnt through.
When we spot a patch of green among the darkness, community recovery volunteer Felicity Sloman says, “It’s a bit like that Schindler’s List movie, that one girl in red.”
Beyond the town’s centre, 20 homes were destroyed in the blaze.
Of those, 10 belonged to CFA members who were off fighting flames in nearby areas as the wider Longwood fire continued to scorch some 140,000 hectares of land.
Fire trucks from North Gundagai and NSW’s Central Coast pass by as Felicity, the Ruffy CFA community safety co-ordinator, tells me she was on a truck at Tarcombe around 10km away when the fire closed in on her home 2km out of Ruffy on Thursday, January 8.
“The fire that day was going everywhere,” Felicity said.
“While we were fighting that fire and not because we were fighting that fire, but it was in Ruffy, and we didn’t know.”
Her house survived, despite the fire burning right up to its deck.
She puts it down to the sprinklers on the roof and the greenery surrounding the property that had been regularly watered with her bore water supply.
“I was so heartened when people said to me that they left the area the night before,” Felicity said.
“If they hadn’t — and this is really important — we would have had a death in Ruffy, and more than one death, which is our death toll from this fire.”
Against advice, there were some who chose to stay and defend their properties.
“They were lucky is all I can say,” Felicity said.
“Prepared or unprepared, no-one was spared.”
A pop-up gazebo topped with flammable fabric next to the community centre remained untouched by flames, while the solid structure beside it was levelled.
How some things survive and others don’t, Felicity says, comes down to luck or “divine intervention or whatever you believe in”.
Sadly, if the townsfolk had been given any choice in what to sacrifice, it would have been the cheap temporary gazebos, not the bricks and mortar dwellings filled with history and memories.
“As the community safety officer, I just want to reiterate how great it was that so many people left their properties early,” Felicity said.
“It’s dreadful the outcome, but fortunately lives were saved.”
You can watch a video from our visit here: