HORSHAM residents were shaken but thankful things hadn't been worse after fire raced around the city's fringe on Saturday.
The 2300ha fire burnt eight houses, the golf club, a CFA vehicle, about 40-50 sheds, cars and many kilometres of fencing.
Cynthia Peterson was home with her husband when the fire began at 12.20pm on a nearby roadside west of Horsham.
While an official cause has not been determined, Mrs Peterson said an insulator and power line appeared to have come off a pole in "ferocious winds".
"Everybody was there in 10 minutes but they couldn't contain it," Mrs Peterson said.
Within several kilometres the fire front was 1.5km wide as it jumped Natimuk Rd and the Wimmera River, narrowly missing a housing estate on Horsham's edge.
From there it travelled to Horsham Golf Club where it burned large trees and the club house.
Don Carter, who lives across the road from the course, used buckets and his pool water to douse flames after he lost power and his water supply.
"We copped the biggest brunt of it as it came out of the trees, it was roaring and I heard explosions at the golf club," Mr Carter said.
"Nobody in their wildest dreams would have imagined we'd see something like that here (but) we are very fortunate compared to the rest of Victoria, there has been no loss of life," Mr Carter said.
Wind changes took the blaze on a horseshoe-shaped route around the edge of town before it was finally extinguished at the edge of Sylvania Park goat farm, east of Horsham, at 6.30pm.
Rowena Doyle, from Sylvania Park, said poor visibility made it impossible to see the fire's progress before it reached her property.
She said while the fire was frightening, she had "got off Scot free" compared to many others across the state.
Deputy incident controller Geoff Evans, who spent several hours defending his own house during the day, described the fire conditions as unprecedented with winds of 65km/h and gusts of up to 80km/h.
Fire also burnt 770ha and killed 250 sheep and 70 cattle near Coleraine on Saturday, before being stopped at the base of a large hill north of the town.
CFA region 4 operations officer Steve Cooper said the blaze began just after 12.30pm and travelled south, then west before narrowly missing Coleraine township and heading along Coleraine-Balmoral Road.
Tom Silcock, whose properties were hit by fires in 2005 and 2006, was thanking his lucky stars after the Coleraine fire was put out at the edge of a lease farm where he runs 10,000 sheep.
"If it had got across the road I don't know where they would have stopped it next, they (CFA) did very well," Mr Silcock, from Telangatuk East, said.
