A wildlife rescuer gathered 20 kangaroos inside her house as bushfires approached her sanctuary.
While amusing, the footage shows the horror faced by locals and animals in the Grampians of Victoria.
Pam Turner from the Wildwood Wildlife Shelter said on Boxing Day she prepared to stay and defend her home.
“I had spent $11,000 on a sprinkler system and had 3 fire pumps, on loan, parked around the cottage area which were ready to be used as sprinklers, and 2 other fire fighting units,” she said on Facebook
“That morning I gathered some of the recently soft-released young kangaroos and let them inside. I would’ve had the whole mob in if I could, but of course that wasn’t possible.
“As it was I had 20 inside plus the small pouch joeys, a few birds, and some gliders.
“We then turned all the sprinklers on and began saturating the area.
“In the video, I am keeping everyone calm as the noise from the sprinklers first starts.
“Within ten minutes, everyone had settled down and they were all laying down as calm as could be.”
Luckily the fire changed direction and missed the sanctuary.
However Turner said a “massive” number of animals would have been killed.
“All the tree-dwelling animals, all the lizards, snakes, echidnas and other ground-dwelling wildlife… all burnt, all dead,” she said.
“There will be some survivors but we have no idea as to how many there might be.”
“Some might have escaped without injury but there will be many suffering from burns and smoke inhalation.”
An online fundraiser for the sanctuary has gathered $36,00 so far.
A handful homes have been lost, along with sheds and outbuildings across Victoria’s south-west, as the out-of-control bushfire continues to burn in the Grampians National Park.
Fire crews are still battling the blaze, which threatened multiple communities on Boxing Day under the worst fire conditions firefighters had seen since the 2019-20 Black Summer fires.
The fire has burnt more than 74,000 hectares, roughly the size of Singapore, and is expected to burn for weeks to come.
