Policeman admits staying to fight fire was a 'stupid decision'

Local police officer Sergeant Graeme Shenton has told ABC Gippsland of his dramatic escape from his property in Sarsfield, northeast of Bairnsdale, this morning.

"A massive ember storm just went straight over the top of my house and I thought, 'that's good, it's missing me.' "Then the wind stopped and it was like an ember storm just dropping straight down onto all the property around us. "Everything from my house down to the valley just lit up in five minutes."

Sergeant Shenton had a plan to defend his property but says it turned out to be of little use.

"I'm a policeman, I've been 19 years in the job and I've been through many, many, many fires and I've seen the devastation that it's caused.

But I still made this decisions that I know better and I'm going to be fine and I'm confident and it won't be a problem and I've got everything that I need.

"But when the water goes off and then the power goes off and then you've got spot fires starting all around you, you can't do anything about it.

"It's alright to know, oh I've got my hose and I'll put the spot fire out. But when there's 15 spot fires, what are you going to do?

"And it wasn't just one spot fire. It was the whole (place).

"The sky dropped down, it was like fire falling out of the sky, and it lit up everything between me and the river, and everything burned."

Sergeant Shenton describes driving through "eight kilometres of inferno" as he tried to make his way out on local roads "with thirty metres of flames on both sides of me."

He described it as a horrendous experience.