In Wednesday’s Argus, the unforgettable experience of a former Moe resident – Mr Fred Webb – in the Rubicon fires is related. At Clarke and Pearce’s No. 1 mill, where he is employed, he endeavoured to save nine horses. When running with them, the terrific blaze, 100 feet high, overtook them.

Thinking they would run to safety, he let them go, but they stood still in terror and then crumpled to the ground. Webb lay among them until the flames went past, and was saved by their burning bodies, but he was severely burned.

[NSA, 13/1/39]