The Blues' coach recounts his frightening tale and urges fans to get behind the club's and the AFL's efforts to support bushfire victims who weren't so lucky.
My wife and I went into the city to celebrate our anniversary on Saturday, so Mum picked the kids up, went to the pictures and then took them back up to Yarra Glen.
We later found out that my sister's house at Dixons Creek (just outside Yarra Glen) was under threat and they were getting evacuated.
The house ended up with all the sleepers burnt, a few windows popped and one of the brick walls had started to buckle and threatened to collapse, but internally it was mostly okay, which was very lucky.
Her partner actually stayed, but someone came past and said, 'you're not staying here, the fire's coming too quick'. He ended up out at the footy ground at Yea while my sister was in Yarra Glen with my kids and my Mum.
They saw the fire coming and tried to leave Yarra Glen, but got blocked in as the fire changed direction. They ended up spending the evening at my Mum and Dad's place in Yarra Glen.
My kids spoke about seeing the flames and the smoke and seeing people run around, so they were fairly scared and my wife was pretty panicky. We couldn't get up there so we just kept ringing them to find out what was going on.
Dad's got a bore there with a lot of water, so he was fairly confident, but as we've seen I don't think anyone could be really confident given the tragic amount of damage that was done.
You can't image the relief that we felt when we saw them all again.
Donations to the Victorian Bushfire Appeal Fund can be made by ringing 1800 811 700 or by visiting redcross.org.au
