Wyndham-based skincare business Saarinen Organics has resumed production of the organic skin care range owner Kay has developed from scratch over the last 12 years.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
or signup to continue reading
January was a nightmare for the Saarinen family, with seven evacuations as new fires started all around. Then on February 1 the fire-front ripped through their property.
For every evacuation they relocated their 50 animals, took prized possessions, everything out of their purpose-built lab and sealed up buildings to protect them from radiant heat.
"We cut out drought affected trees, we raked, we worked so hard to save our farm. The advice was that it would be indefensible and if we stayed we would die, nobody was going to come and help, as this was a fire storm coming, not a 'normal' fighting fire," Kay said.
Gregg Saarinen is a volunteer firefighter and on the weekend their farm was burned, their area on Mt Darragh Rd was deemed too dangerous to defend and no-one was permitted to stay and fight.
While Gregg helped save houses in the township of Wyndham he watched the fire rip through their property in the distance.
"I was safe with our daughter in Pambula just watching the app and listening to the scanners, I had to break the news that our property was burning," Kay explained.
Gregg returned to the farm in the early hours of the morning and through flames, smoke and ash with the firetruck lights from the top of the driveway he could make out that their straw bale home was still there, standing proud.
"It was a long wait before it was safe to go and walk around our farm to see how it was affected. All of our buildings survived, a little battle-scarred, soot and ash attacked, but there they stand."
There was an estimated $50,000 worth of damage to the farm, including water tanks and irrigation.
"Our two orchards are ruined with about 50 fruit nut and berry trees burnt from radiant heat and the orchard netting melted and of course fences and crops," Kay said.
The smoke-damaged home and buildings were insured but the infrastructure and orchard weren't and as the business isn't classed as primary production, they didn't qualify for grants.
That was the motivation for initiating crowdfunding, "to get back to where we were, start our healing process and bring our farm back to its former glory".
They have had a good response to a GoFundMe page set up to help recover some losses.
"Our income is mainly from local markets where we make most of our money in January and February, unfortunately with tourists evacuated and markets cancelled we just couldn't make any money," Kay said.
"We have lost our income, our farm that provides income, the stress, the torture, the displacement, we fall through the cracks."
Saarinen Organics employ locals to work in the gardens and lab in addition to attracting tourists to Wyndham for farm tours.
"The sooner we can stop spending money on repairs the sooner we can start paying our staff again."
