How this regional town became a caravan community

The Paramount Studio caravan has an external body length of just over 7.6 metres and a width of almost 2.5 metres.

Rio Crupi stands about 170 centimetres, but if he were much taller, he would have to stoop inside the caravan, which has an internal height of two metres.

That is just as well because this will be home for at least another year, and possibly much longer. The caravan sits beneath a bare earth crater where his house stood before a bushfire tore through the small town of Ruffy, destroying dozens of homes and sheds.

All but two buildings in Ruffy’s town centre were destroyed in January. Only the town hall and CFA station were spared. Crupi lived in his Ruffy home for about 20 years and hoped to enjoy his retirement there tending to cattle and his fruit orchards.

“At my age, to start again is quite a daunting prospect,” he says.

Before the construction process can begin, Crupi faces a brutal winter. Ruffy is about 175 kilometres north-east of Melbourne and is more than 500 metres above sea level. Winter is notoriously cold.

Now, caravans are dotted across the landscape. Houses have been burnt out and residents are rebuilding their homes and scorched farms. Keeping the caravan warm will be easy, but Crupi knows he can’t stay inside such a tight space all day avoiding the cold.

“Ordinarily, during winter, you can go inside the house and have a fire going, be comfortable and come out whenever you want,” Crupi says. “There are days so cold your hands ache. That’s going to be difficult.”

The Longwood fire, which began in early January, razed 41 dwellings and 92 structures in Ruffy.

“A lot of those people will be living in caravans,” Crupi says.

The fire torched all the fences on his 180-acre farm. So he can’t get stock back onto the land, even though decent rain has helped spread a green tinge across his property.

His dams are so full of ash, Crupi expects it will be 12 months before cattle can drink from them. The fire destroyed his farming machinery and sheds. Thankfully, he was not there when his home burnt.

Were it not for the support of his community, Crupi says, he would have sold up after the disaster.

A short drive from Crupi’s property, Rob and Bron Jamieson are also bracing for an arduous recovery. They, too, lost their house and farm and are living in a caravan on their property.

“Nearly every house down our neck of the woods perished,” Rob says.

The pair were on holidays when the fire raged. They returned 36 hours later and found their house, four cars, tractor, two lawn mowers and an all-terrain utility vehicle destroyed.

The fire gutted their cars and melted the aluminium into the ground like a puddle of solid mercury. It also wiped out 11 kilometres of fencing.

“It’s going to take many years to recover,” Rob says.

The couple took their first summer holiday partly because their property was so green. Rob, who is a CFA member, has turned out to many fires. But in 103 years, their property had never been burnt out.

“You wouldn’t expect to get blown away, like we did.”

Bron recalls watching the fires through CCTV cameras mounted on their house.

“We watched it until the cameras melted,” she says.

Through good management and luck, they saved their animals and have since sold most of them and agisted others. After the fires, the couple stayed briefly with their daughter in Gisborne. But now they are living on their farm, so they can be there when tradespeople or service providers arrive.

Bron expects to be in the caravan for up to two years because of a shortage of builders. Living in such a confined space will be a challenge, she says.

The homestead had been in Bron’s family for four generations, and she lost family documents, photographs, artwork, and wedding gifts belonging to her parents and grandparents. The fire damaged a bronze plaque dedicated to her grandmother Esme Wilson that she was going to place on a stone.

“It’s all my family history,” she says.

But the blaze could not extinguish the community spirit. Much of the response has been community-led.

Bron has lived in the area all her life and knows it intimately. Yet, she met some people for the first time after the fires.

After COVID, many of the community groups lay dormant. But this fire drew them out.

Monash University disaster resilience expert Adriana Keating says recovery can take years, and some people are still in caravans after the 2019/20 “mega-fires”.

“Rebuilding really quickly is not always necessarily the best thing, particularly if it comes without genuine community leadership,” she says.

Keating believes governments must empower communities to help determine what services and supports they need after a disaster.

“It’s community members and local organisations that know which people have the greatest needs,” she says. “But community-led recovery doesn’t mean community alone. They need to be supported.”

Ruffy Community Action Group chair Don Cook knows of at least five people living in caravans, but suspects there are many more. Although his house was spared, Cook watched flames and a tower of smoke come perilously close before evacuating his property.

He says the smoke plumes were so big they created their own weather system – a known phenomenon in major fires.

“Right next to that column of smoke, it was raining,” Cook says.

He has helped lead the recovery effort in the town of 164 people. Cook says there is no singular model for bushfire recovery that will suit every person in Ruffy.

“I’ve got to give you 164 answers because everybody’s on their own journey,” he says.

Across the Strathbogie Shire, which includes Ruffy, the Longwood fire burnt 138,000 hectares, destroying 113 homes and 243 structures – mostly sheds. Mayor Scott Jeffery says most people who lost homes across the shire have moved into temporary accommodation, including rentals or other accommodation such as caravans.

“Council welcomes the recovery funding already committed by the state government but more is needed,” he says.

Jeffery argues Strathbogie Shire has received just $1.3 million from $15 million in state funding for community recovery officers and hubs. The council also asked the government to provide three years of rate relief for residents affected by the fires, and to waive the Emergency Services Volunteer Fund levy.

A spokesman for the Victorian government said it had delivered more than $420 million in support since January’s fires, including recovery hubs, financial help, clean-up, accommodation, legal help, case management and mental health support.

“We have been there every step of the way for bushfire-affected communities, and we always will be,” he says.

Rio Crupi has changed his mind countless times about rebuilding his home and farm. Ultimately, one of his daughters convinced him to do it.

She said if Crupi only put a shed on his land, she would not be able to come and stay with her son, who will soon turn one.

“That was the clincher,” Crupi says.

When he has finished rebuilding, Crupi will take his grandson out on the quad bike to look at the cows.

In summer, the little boy and his grandfather might wander the orchards. Biting into the first freshly picked peach, grandson at his side while the family gathers in the house, will taste better than anything before.

That prospect alone is motivation enough to withstand a frigid winter in the tight confines of a caravan.