Local firefighters Bill Chapman and Geoff Flack recall the Ash Wednesday effort

"The Macedon fire started over near Trentham when the wind put a limb through a power line," the former Castlemaine CFA captain says.

"That was the start of it, that's when it took off and the brigades south of that area were brought in. Our brigade was called in later."

Mr Chapman wasn't part of the crew who arrived in Macedon from Castlemaine on Ash Wednesday.

He had stayed behind to organise operations and only travelled down the following day.

Those who did join the firefight that day, together with a lot of other trucks and units, "had a hard time of it", Mr Chapman said.

"The fire was going all over, they were right in the thick of it and it really took off with the wind change," he said.

"They were there when the change hit, and that really tires you out."

As well as tiring, it was emotional.

"You get there and you're trying to do something and you succeed in doing it and then next thing the wind changes and the whole lot comes unstuck again and you're back to square one."

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Macedon fire station was destroyed and seven people from Mt Macedon and Trentham were among 47 Victorians who lost their lives that day.

When Mr Chapman arrived on the Thursday, with the fire by then contained, he was upset by what he saw.

"Actually I teared up when I went down there early next morning because it was the old highway, and you saw the houses through the Black Forest that had been devastated, absolutely devastated, through there, because it came through there that hard," he said.

"I was upset to see damage like that.

"Then you get bravery like some of those blokes up on Mt Macedon itself who kept the fire out of that pub where all the women and children were.

"Those blokes stood up there and kept that pub wet, with all the people from up around there in it, and kept the fire out of that.

"Those blokes deserve a bloody medal. It was a bloody brilliant effort."

Mr Chapman's crew spent a full day working with a bulldozer pushing a break around the fire, with tankers for protection.

"The brigade probably all up would've put three days in down there," he says.

One of the effects of the involvement was the benefit of the experience.

"That's the thing that you get out of it that makes a big difference - that learning experience," Mr Chapman said.

"It gives the volunteers experience in what goes on and how to look after themselves and such, and in the long run it pays.

"Some of them are leaders of the brigade now. And some others would've got their experience from the Black Saturday fires."

Mr Chapman was named the 2023 Mt Alexander Shire Senior Citizen of the Year in January in recognition of his decades-long contribution to the Castlemaine CFA, along with several other community groups.

There were embers from the Macedon fires floating in to Bendigo when Geoff Flack was called in to the station about 3pm on Ash Wednesday.

The 27-year-old was one of five or six members of Bendigo Volunteer Fire Brigade who were sent to hold the fort at Castlemaine.

"We were sent to the Castlemaine station to look after the township because the Castlemaine brigade went to the fires at Macedon," he said.

"My older brother and a few guys were deployed to Kyneton. I think they looked after the Kyneton station while the brigade were in Macedon."

Mr Flack remembers some concern among the group about what might happen that night.

"We did speak about it," he said. "We were just hoping nothing happened because it throws you in the deep end, especially when you're out of your own area.

"Fortunately it didn't. We were relieved in the early hours of the morning, at maybe 1am or 2am, by another group, and we came back to Bendigo."

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