Surrounded by fire-ravaged stumps, the air thick with smoke, Terang man Chris O'Connor can't help but recall the worst blaze his Victorian home town has ever seen - Ash Wednesday.
It's been more than 30 years, but locals will "without a doubt" be thinking about the deadly blaze as they pick up the pieces of the latest devastation, he said.
One woman who lost her property at the weekend also saw her childhood home destroyed in 1983, as the fire path followed a "remarkably similar" route.
"It's been pretty eerie that way," Mr O'Connor told AAP on Monday.
"Fortunately there were no lives lost, that's the silver lining."
Fires in the areas of Terang, Camperdown, and Cobden have claimed up to 18 homes and 42 dairy and machinery sheds, as well as hundreds of livestock.
It's cooler there now, Mr O'Connor says, and fire crews from far and wide have arrived to help.
He was camping 12 hours away as the fire began, and he rushed back when he heard of the threat amid hot temperatures and wind gusts of more than 100 km/h.
A fire came close to his home, but it was spared after winds turned.
The deputy president of the Terang and District Lions Club, Mr O'Connor is coordinating an effort to funnel emergency hay and supplies to the area's worst hit farmers.
"It's difficult to help people unless you know about it," Mr O'Connor said.
"Try not to be proud. Let others know, because the community is more than willing to help out in any way they can."
A quarter of the 40,000 hectares burnt are dairy farms, with one farmer losing 700 cows.
"It's like a whole factory burning down," Victorian Farmer's Federation president David Jochinke told AAP.
"Everything - (the farmer's) whole livelihood - would revolve around those cows."
Australian Associated Press
