Mount Clear Secondary College outdoor and environment students helped the Leigh Catchment Group to plant trees at a fire affected property in Clarendon on Monday. 

The planting day was one of many in the area as part of the Leigh Catchment Group’s Scotsburn Phoenix Project. 

Leigh Catchment Authority environmental projects officer Jane Bevelander said fire recovery was a long term process. 

“The first couple of years the landowners were really just in survival mode dealing with their property loss, fences, stock loss, shed loss and a lot of them were traumatised as well,” she said.

“That is why it is great to really be able to have that time now when people are ready to start looking at rejuvenating and restoring the bushland. But it will be a decade before we see the results of the planting.”

More than 40 properties have signed up to the Phoenix Project.

The high intensity of the fire that tore through Scotsburn and Clarendon meant many trees were gutted in the middle and have died after a year or two, meaning much of the forest won’t naturally recover. 

The Leigh Catchment Group helped former Scotsburn landowner Murray Arnel replant at his badly damaged 17 acre property last fortnight. 

He and wife Cheryl said they were thankful for the support they had received throughout the fire recovery. 

“To think that you have put 35 years of work into a property and it be destroyed in five minutes. To have to rebuild it from scratch again, to have those people come along to do that initial work, volunteers re-fencing, or insurance repairing, just to have that support,” Mr Arnel said.

“We look a back at it now and think we wouldn’t have made it without their help.”

The Phoenix Project finishes in mid 2020, but recovery work will be ongoing for many years to come. 

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