Well thank fuck the fire is over for now. It ended up burning out 15 000ha of bush and farmland, 16 homes, and numerous kangaroos and other animals. Possums were screaming in the treetops. Kangaroos are showing up with their feet and ears burnt off.
The pic of the place with the 44gal drum in front is where I lived for 5 happy years, it used to have a grapevine and a passionfruit vine growing on the pergola the over the table. The bathtub wasn't for people - that was the pig bath, where we used to scald them then scrape the bristles off.
The stone chimney is all that remains of a mates house where, over the last eighteen years we have spent many happy times. I shared last christmas with my mates here. On the front verandah where two cane/wicker chairs - they came through without a scorch mark on them, as did a wooden table I made about twenty years ago that was in the back yard. A kangaroo was in the shed 20 foot away, done medium well.
Basically, once a fire starts crowning - (going through the treetops, and they just explode), you're fucked. At least we are not waking up with the slightest wiff of smoke and no longer check the sky for smoke or a glow when going outside. (For now anyway)
Anyway, we are a tight community and we will rebuild the folks that got burnt out. Such is life.