It has taken three years of back and forth negotiations to organise the burn, which was originally scheduled for November last year but got banned by CFA’s District 22 headquarters because of dry conditions.
Longwood CFA communication manager and owner of the Rockery Gemstone Museum Maurie Brodie said he "raised merry hell" when the burn was called off.
“We were furious beyond belief last year,” Mr Brodie said.
“I was absolutely devastated.”
After several weeks of disappointment, the 2019/20 bushfires – also known as the Black Summer fires - begun and the Longwood CFA dropped the issue for several months out of respect.
CFA District 22 commander Peter Dedman said the burns were called off last year because the CFA was unable to find a window of time where a cool, regenerative burn could take place.
“It wouldn't have been a good, safe burn,” Mr Dedman said.
“If we burn outside the prescribed conditions it is actually illegal for us to burn.”
Mr Dedman said there was a good chance Longwood would get their burn this year.
“We are just tying off the last bits of the permit now,” he said.
“Once we meet the weather prescriptions we'll be right to go.”
The planned burns will occur anytime between now and Christmas when the weather is right and take one to two days to complete.
The process will involve crews using wet control lines and controlled fire over an area of about 18 ha in the town.
Longwood general store manager Chris Oliver also runs the Longwood Australia Post branch.
She has been sorting piles of planned burn notices, sending them out to mailboxes and handing them to residents who collect their mail in-store.
Ms Oliver moved to Longwood in June from Melbourne and said personally she was a little uneasy over the idea of a burn so close to town.
“The first time I entered the shop there was a huge sign saying ‘if the fire comes through here we aren’t responsible for what it burns’ and I thought ‘woah’,” Ms Oliver said.
“Someone died in a fire, it was a long time ago, but memory is long here and the locals are all in the CFA in one way or anything.
“We are a small town we only have 240 people.”
One of Ms Oliver’s customers, Deb Poulton, said she would not feel safe in Longwood if they did not burn.
“If a fire comes we don’t have enough people to move all the livestock, and if you go out onto the highway you’ll get stuck out there,” Ms Poulton said.
Longwood farmer Jenny Houghton runs a vineyard outside town.
“The Longwood Fire Brigade is outstanding,” Mrs Houghton said.
“There is over 100 years of experience on the brigade and they have an amazing knowledge of our local bush.
“For them to be denied a permit was a shocking piece of bureaucracy.”
In 1965 nine people perished in a bushfire around Longwood, including a 70-year-old firefighter and a family of seven whose car crashed into a tree while fleeing the flames.
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