Harcourt residents come to terms with fire devastation
Ask Tyrone Rice about the destruction of the small town of Harcourt and you get a harsh response.
“Someone had to get through this, and we were in the line of fire… this is no different than other towns that have gone through this,” he says.
Rice knows all too well the danger of wildfires. As a 48-year veteran and former captain of the CFA, Harcourt has been to numerous firegrounds in Victoria and interstate. His wife Raewyn is the local CFA communications officer and their son Nathan is an education officer.
But this time, Tyrone admits “it’s a little more personal.”
As all three members of the Rice family battled the flames Friday night, their own home was on fire. It was built on land owned by Tyrone’s father, in a town his grandfather helped found.
“It’s a bit like a kick in the gut,” Tyrone admits, his upper lip trembling for a moment.
All that remained of the 40-year-old house were bricks; however, the plastic pegs on the basket were unaffected. Raewyn suffers from her garden. The vegetables were the best he had ever eaten.
The fire that ravaged Harcourt after the cool change on Friday evening was very bad. He sped forward, leaping from ridge to valley, leaping the Calder Highway and rendering the Bendigo railway line impassable. Witnesses describe pieces of burning parquet sleepers falling from the overpass on Victoria Road. Also destroyed was the area’s economically important Coolstore.
“I was trying to get back here [to the house]Tyrone says: “But I couldn’t because Coolstore Road was on fire. Then there was a lady wandering around and Raewyn had to get her to safety.”
“We’ll probably rebuild,” Tyrone says. It’s unclear whether he was talking about his home, his town, or both.
But this fire hit something important to Harcourt: a series of warehouses and buildings called Coolstore.
Founded in 1917, this cooperative was the economic and social center of the entire region; what one distraught owner called “a pub without beer”. Winemaking business owner Paul Taylor says 20 to 30 people come in every day to pick up or drop off something related to various errands.
“This was a meeting place where the potato farmer met the grape grower,” Taylor says.
There are now twisted metal hanging above tens of thousands of cracked and broken wine bottles, burnt apples, roasted potatoes and unidentified melted equipment. Some parts are still smoldering, the burning smell creating a pungent odor in the air.
“Everything is really gone,” Taylor whispers.
Stephen Upton’s enormous shed here stored furniture that he and his wife, Sam, rented to real estate agents for home staging. Before Friday, everywhere was full as usual; The new year period was quiet in terms of housing sales. But you could be forgiven for thinking you’re free today. Except for a few bedsprings and table frames, all of their stock evaporated.
“Damn. God damn. God damn,” Stephen says, peering through the half-melted door. “There’s nothing there.”
Sam is openly crying in the garden. Their houses are good, their works are ashes. He spent the night safely with the dogs near Bendigo while Stephen drove the CFA trucks trying to rescue Harcourt from a multi-headed inferno in the middle of the night.
Stephen says his trucks have nearly burned down two or three times due to fire coming out of nowhere.
“It was very aggressive, very big. Everywhere you looked there was something to do,” he says. He slept for two hours and looks wired.
On the edge of town, Harcourt’s newest addition, the Victoria Miniature Railway, survives. Thanks to the work of the CFA, the school and kindergarten are in good condition. So is the town’s swimming pool.
But to the north, where another finger of fire has pierced through, David Foley is still siphoning the hot, smoking ground. His land was blackened and his hut was in ruins. Inside were furniture and accessories that he planned to put in the house he was building.
He and his wife were planning a new mixed farming and tourism business; While these plans have not been canceled completely, they are currently on hold.
The only thing that survived the fire here was the bright pink “tiny house” they lived in during construction. This was thanks to a neighbor who protected his own property and then chased the fire down the road to save David’s. David wasn’t there.
“I’m not a chaser, I’m a runner,” he says with a cheerful smile that belies his situation. He was out of town.
What about now? “I’m not processing this. It just happened. I’m just in practice mode. If my wife was here you’d burst into tears.”
He later apologizes. There are remnants of a fire that need to be extinguished.
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Michael Bachelard is The Age’s senior writer and former deputy editor and research editor. He has worked in Canberra, Melbourne and Jakarta, written two books and won several awards for journalism, including the Gold Walkley.Connect with: excitement or email.
