A Maltese family who experienced the destruction of personal belongings in a devastating bush-fire still get emotional when speaking about the horror more than three years later.

We still can’t bear to open a container where we stored many personal items, and which were destroyed by the fire, Maltese-Australian Joe Vella, 52, said in an interview with The Malta Independent on Sunday.

Joe, his wife Samantha, 38, and their five children Angel (17), Shayden (16), Keegen (15), Kaylum (11) and Rylan (9), live on a family-owned farm in Lexton. On 20 December 2019, right at the beginning of the Australian summer, the area was hit by a bush fire, which made headlines all around the world. Lexton is a town in western Victoria Australia, which is mostly made up of several farms.

“Imagine having all your most precious, meaningful personal belongings burnt together with all the children’s baby photos and wedding dress,” Samantha said, as she explained how these were all packed in a container for the family to transport to their new home as soon as it was finished.

“Over 90% of our property got burned in the bush fires,” said Joe.

“It definitely delayed the process of building a new family home,” Joe said.

Although times got better, more than three years later the family is still working to recover both financially and emotionally from the ordeal.

Going back to that day, Samantha explained how she was at work when she received a Victoria emergency notification informing her that there was a bush fire in the state forest close to their property.

“It was the instant feeling of dread that the fire was so close and there was no way it would be able to be contained, as the dry forest floor was full of shrubs and bush land, while the emergency vehicle paths had been blocked by fallen trees,” she said.

She attempted to call her family to evacuate, but was unable to reach them and had to drive fast to the family home. Upon arrival, she found several Country Fire Authority (CFA) vehicles on her property, urging her to evacuate immediately due to expected wind changes which were to direct the blaze towards their home.

Samantha remembered how in a matter of minutes she gathered her belongings, loaded their dogs into the trailer, but had to leave their cats and other animals behind due to lack of time.

After waiting at the town's evacuation point, she was distraught to learn that her husband had refused to leave their home even after the police had tried to convince him to evacuate.

When Joe eventually left he informed her that the fire had hit the property, causing great damage.

Joe had remained on the property in order to try to limit the damage as much as possible. He watered the surroundings of their temporary home and quickly mowed the surrounding grass. But the fire showed no mercy and the property was engulfed in flames.

The family ended up living at their in-laws for a few weeks until a more permanent accommodation could be sorted.

“The next few days were a whirlwind,” Samantha said. She had never cried so much or seen her husband so upset.

“The visit back to the farm to find that their property was 90% burnt out was devastating,” she said.

The family found that the horses and cats had luckily survived, but, much of their other livestock, including sheep and cows, had not.

They discovered that the fire had destroyed the entire contents of a container they were keeping to store their personal belongings, which included furniture, a lifetime's worth of personal stuff and many treasured possessions.

The family was overcome with emotion as they saw their items perish as “if they never existed”. They still can’t bring themselves to open the container to see the destroyed memories.

The couple can still relive the feelings that came with the realisation that they had to start over from scratch.

“It has been a hard recovery as we slowly rebuild and we still have a lot of work to do to repair ourselves physically and emotionally,” she said.

The family would like to thank everyone for their immediate support that had occurred in the weeks that followed the bush fires, as they were inundated with numerous phone calls, messages and offers of support and assistance.

They are also thankful to their family and friends who have continued to assist them in such a difficult time.

“It was a hard time, but the important thing is to move on,” they say.