‘This farm is my life. The girls are my life.’
A Victorian farmer who went viral for using his Bonds underwear as a mask to protect himself from smoke inhalation has issued a raw and emotional plea for help as bushfires continue to rip through the state.
Greg Conlan, whose farming property at Molesworth has been largely destroyed by the Longwood blaze, shared confronting footage of the moment he tried desperately to save his cattle as flames closed in.
“Stay there, girls. Stay there. It’s all right,” Conlan can be heard soothing his cattle in the video as the fire bears down on the herd.
On Sunrise on Tuesday, Conlan explained his cattle were panicking and running away from the fire, but were heading straight toward metal stockyards that he said could have killed at least half of them.
“I was just doing anything I could. And look, I speak to them every day. This farm is my life. The girls are my life,” he said, fighting back tears.
“It’s my happy place”.
Conlan said around 80 per cent of his property has been destroyed. Despite the scale of the damage, he said he considers himself one of the luckier ones, having not lost any of his cattle.
With an estimate of more than 15,000 livestock killed in the fires, Conlan said he is thankful to still have enough feed for his cattle over the coming days.
“I actually feel like I’ve fared OK. I’ve lost 80 per cent of my pastures … we’ve lost so much here, but there’s so many people that have lost so much more, and they’ve got no feed for their livestock today and tomorrow and so on,” he said.
