A FORMER Weekly Times journalist has recorded the stories of survivors and firefighters. SARAH HUDSON reports

Living through Black Saturday once provided a lifetime's worth of trauma for most survivors.

But for the past 10 months Jim Usher has been reliving the horror of February 7 last year - Black Saturday - over and over and over.

The St Andrews resident, whose property came within 1km of the bushfire front, has just published a book with co-author and friend Mac Gudgeon, Footsteps in the Ash, which recounts the stories of 80 survivors and 65 firefighters in St Andrews and Strathewen.

"It was a very emotional process. There were a lot of tears," says Jim, 76, a former journalist at The Weekly Times.

"The survivors needed to talk about it - no one said no to being interviewed. Most people I spoke to were fortunate not to have died in the fires.

"In writing the book I became a listening post for them and also in a way took their trauma on board.

"It sometimes became difficult to cope with the emotion and I had to walk away from writing several times. It was probably the most difficult assignment I've had in 60 years of journalism."

Jim says the only way he was able to conclude the book was to focus on the good that was coming from the project.

Funded by the Bendigo Community Bank, the first print run of 5000 will see copies evenly distributed to the St Andrews and Arthur's Creek-Strathewen CFA brigades, who will raise $125,000 from selling the books.

Ideally subsequent print runs will allow Footsteps in the Ash, which has a foreword by deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard, to be distributed to CFAs around the state.

Jim started out his journalistic career on the now-defunct Argus in 1949 - even reporting in Canberra under then prime minister Robert Menzies.

He says it was a "no brainer" to write the book: "It's a big story that needs to be told".

Initially he was motivated after losing close friends in the fire but quickly realised it was important to tell the personal stories of the two towns, which have a combined population of 700 and lost 37 people and 117 homes.

"Every story we tell is different.

"It's important to tell their stories because it shows the capacity of people to survive in such horrible situations and what they did to survive.

"And there's also a lesson not to be too blase ... my advice to anyone after living through the fire and speaking with the survivors is that on a day like that, don't consider staying and fighting it."

He says while all stories touched him deeply and their cumulative power left him overwhelmed, a few stand out.

One tells the story of five people - close personal friends - sheltering in a shallow creek who survived after a nearby dam miraculously broke its wall, gushing water on to them.

Another tells of a family who, running from their home as it burned, left family photos on the ground doused in the only water that remained.

"When they were running their dog broke free and ran to the fire. They thought it was dead but the dog was found by the CFA the next day guarding the family photos. It was sitting with three of their chooks.

"So there is a lot of humour and inspiration too."

Jim was well-placed to empathise with his interview subjects, having narrowly survived himself.

Geared to fight the blaze, the front came within 1km of his 10.5ha farm and it was only thanks to the late wind change that he, his wife, Pam, son and son-in-law were saved.

"That sends a huge shiver through me to think of what could have happened. We all would have died. I often think why did the fire stop 1km away and the wind changed.

"I think that saved tens of thousands of people because it could have kept going to Eltham and Doncaster and beyond. I have always thought life is precious but I think it's far more precious now."

He admits the book has been therapeutic - not just for himself but the survivors - yet says he has not had time to properly grieve.

"Survivors do say they feel guilty for living while their friends and family haven't. I've been living on adrenaline since starting to write the book and haven't had an opportunity to grieve.

"Once the book is finished I think a lot more will emerge."