Just after February 7 last year Ann and Kevin received a call on their Early Riser segment from Ray Wilson. He, his wife Maree and her parents Paul and Maree Heckler were all affected by the events of Black Saturday.

One year on, we’re still in touch with Ray.

In his own words, here’s Ray’s story from that fateful day:

"What happened on February 7th was Maree’s Dad and Mum were trapped in their property and couldn’t get out. So Maree and I went in to try to get them out and were trapped for about 45 minutes until we could find a way out.

I thought you might like a little background information on our family.

I am a 62 year old truck driver and my wife Maree is a 56 year old company receptionist. We live on 20 acres at Whittlesea about 15 minutes drive from Maree’s parents.

Paul Heckler (Maree’s Dad) is 92 years old and Maree, his wife of 67 years is 87 years old. They have lived in Heathcote Junction (Wandong area) on approximately 65 acres for about 26 years and love it up there.

On Saturday 7th February when the winds changed direction we drove up to get Maree’s parents out, but I was stopped at a police roadblock at Wallan East.

The police said that everyone had been evacuated on the North Mountain Road. I put the mobile phone to the Police Officers ear so he could hear Paul asking me for help.

They let me go through the road block telling me I only had 5 minutes to get in and out of the property. As we got to the road junction the fire was already at the corner and they are 2 kilometers deeper into the fire.

I knew it was going to be bad.






As we passed their neighbour’s house, it was on fire.

Paul and Maree’s half kilometer long driveway was horrendous with flames blowing right across the driveway to trees on the other side. We had to ‘bash’ through, just hoping there were no fallen trees blocking our way.

As we got to the top of the driveway we couldn’t see anything because of the smoke. Maree called out ‘where’s the house?’ I drove in the direction of the house. Maree jumped out of my car while it was moving as I couldn’t stop. The grass was burning and I didn’t want the tyres to catch fire. The carport and pergola were already on fire while Maree’s parents were in the house.

As we pushed Paul and Maree into the car my wife Maree fell over and lost her footwear. Maree’s mum got burnt on the top of her leg, and my wife Maree got burnt on her arm. Both have healed well, but I think we all will have emotional scars forever.

Paul and Maree’s house was destroyed.

As we drove off from the house hundreds of hot embers got into the car while we had the doors open. Maree said to me papers on the back seat were on fire. While I drove I was trying to put out the front floor carpet fires.

We drove down the back of the property away from a lot of the burning trees onto some clearer ground. For the next 45 minutes we rotated the car around trying to let some parts of the car cool off a bit. We put the front to the heat then turned around to put the rear of the car to the heat. Then we put the driver’s side to the heat while we tried to have the passenger side windows down a bit so we could breathe.

After battling for about 45 minutes, the air conditioner under the dashboard started burning and I couldn’t put this fire out. It just kept smoldering! I tipped water into the radio, cd player and air vents, but it was still smoldering.

We were having serious trouble breathing so I decided we have to get out of the property before we lose anymore wiring under the dashboard.

I had to get out of the car as you could barely see a couple of meters in front of you because of the choking smoke.
We had approximately 20 kilometers of burnt ground, trees etc.. with 100kph winds pushing smoke at us.

We were able to get out of the driveway to the main road (which was looking really bad) then creep down the road until we got to an area the fire hadn’t touched.

We got back to our place and the fire had got to within 1.5 kms from our house.

But, we are all fit and well and have started the rebuilding process of Paul and Maree’s house. I had my car replaced as it was ‘written’ off by the insurance company.
Paul is keen to rebuild and I will do whatever it takes to get him back up to his own ‘patch of ground’.

Thank you both for letting us tell a small part of our story, and to let people know their donations have reached the people in need."