Pialligo Estate farm has one of Canberra's most beautiful settings, which came under threat on Thursday, just before noon.
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The immaculately kept gardens, vineyards and the onsite restaurant were defended after a fire started on its street, Kallaroo Road.
Pialligo Estate general manager Scott Taylor was one of four people who stayed on the property for six hours during the fire threat.
About 60 people were on the farm who had to evacuate, including 25 children who were at the Possum Patch, a children's event space on the property. A bus was quickly organised and the children were taken to ADFA.
"I made sure humans were safe so I did a big scour of the building, did a head count, we have a system in place where we know everybody that's on site, so went through that list and checked it off," he said.
Mr Taylor stayed on site with head horticulturist Greg Ring and grounds maintenance and fire warden John Sanderson, who helped crews defend the property with 2000-litre water cubes they keep on the property.
"Pretty quick the boys in the yellow jackets came down and got stuck in," he said.
"It really picked up and the wind was absolutely howling ... we kind of hit it with a spatula while they were dropping scud missiles on it, so they were far more effective than we were.
"The choppers just came in and it was pretty amazing to watch, they just hovered over the river and sucked up 5000 litres at a time and dumped it on the fire."
There was an element of grit and determination and I could just hear Elton John's I'm Still Standing in the back of my brain.
- Pialligo Estate general manager Scott Taylor
Mr Taylor could not sing the praises of the mission enough.
"When you saw the machine click into action it was like a perfect military operation," he said.
"I can only correlate it to the lunch services here and our lunch services don't flow anywhere near as smoothly as these guys fighting fire.
"I'm glad it's that way around because it doesn't matter if we get a few lunches wrong - nobody's house is going to burn down."
Sadly, Pialligo Estate is no stranger to fire. In 2016, the smokehouse burned down and just a year later a fire took hold of the main restaurant.
"There was an element of grit and determination and I could just hear Elton John's I'm Still Standing in the back of my brain," Mr Taylor said.
"It's just one of the most beautiful properties I've ever seen and having to defend it so many times, it just makes you realise it's a wide brown land and it's a pretty austere part of the world.
"It's just part of the grit that builds character ... although I think we've got enough character now."