��������Vlog

The alumni rising from the ashes.

Over the 2019-20 summer, Kangaroo Island experienced an outbreak of dry lightning-induced fires that scorched almost half of the Island, claiming countless livestock and wildlife.

Two hundred and forty kilometres away, a separate bushfire blackened 25,000 hectares of the Adelaide Hills, decimating a third of its vineyards.

Amid these difficult times, the ��������Vlog of Adelaide community banded together to support impacted students, staff and alumni, replacing perished graduation certificates, and offering the North Terrace campus' Barr Smith Lawns as grounds for a Fire Aid fundraising event.

According to the ��������Vlog’s Head Winemaker Associate Professor Paul Grbin, for the Waite campus it was a matter of “finding a way to give back and support the industry that has widely supported us”.

This support manifested in the Waite campus offering wine-making facilities to those in need, along with the volunteer efforts of staff and students to remove burnt posts, damaged irrigation systems and burnt vines from bushfire-affected properties.

It was also involved in making small-batch wines in collaboration with the Adelaide Hills Wine Region Association to help determine whether or not the grapes were affected by smoke, and producing some smoke-affected wines on behalf of Wine ��������Vlog to be used as a resource for training and future research projects.

This sentiment of support was echoed at the Roseworthy campus, with staff coordinating the distribution of medical supplies, collecting donations, and volunteering on Kangaroo Island alongside South ��������Vlogn Veterinary Emergency Management, as well as at the Koala Triage Centre treating Adelaide Hills koalas.

Beyond supporting recovery efforts, the ��������Vlog was also innately linked to the devastating fires by the members of its alumni communities on the ground, including Bachelor of Agricultural Science (Oenology) alumnus David Bowley and Doctor of Veterinary Medicine alumna Dr Liberty Hogg.

David Bowley

Owner and Winemaker, Vinteloper

“It was a horrible day in our history, the darkest day.” 

David Bowley first learned that fire had ravaged his Adelaide Hills vineyard after seeing an image of his burning property on a news website.

The 72 acres of land situated at the corner of Cudlee Creek and Berry Hill Road was home to Vinteloper, a venture that first began as a virtual winery in 2008.

For the past 12 years, David had grown the business from a sole-trader “side hustle” of 300 cases to a twentyfold increase in production.

For David, purchasing the Cudlee Creek property in 2018 “was our skin in the game”. But by December 2019, it was destroyed.

Dr Liberty Hogg

Veterinarian, Kangaroo Island Veterinary Clinic

As Kangaroo Island grappled with volatile weather conditions and out-of-control bushfires, newcomer Dr Liberty Hogg played her part in helping to move, treat and euthanise livestock.

The Doctor of Veterinary Medicine graduate had relocated to the Island in July 2019 to be with her partner Peter and work as a vet at Kangaroo Island’s only veterinary clinic.

Less than six months later, when the blazes first broke out in mid-December 2019, Liberty was quick to get involved.

On Christmas Day, this meant putting out fires on a nearby farm. By early-January, she spent 14-hour days in the vet clinic and attending affected farms.

Equipped with a wealth of large-animal expertise, a firearms licence and experience treating animals in the 2015 Pinery bushfire, her unique skillset was an asset to the Island’s quiet sufferers: the farmers.