Firefighters battle the blaze that destroyed a Monbulk family’s home on Thursday.By Ed Merrison
A FEW pots and pans and burned photo albums were all that remained after a Monbulk family’s home went up in flames last week.
Dean Martin watched in horror on Thursday as flames engulfed the house he had spent six years renovating.
The Monbulk electrician had been leaving a job in Brighton when wife Katrina, who was in the Baynes Park Road house with daughters Rachel and Kirrily, called him to let him know it had caught alight.
“The mobile dropped out after she told me the house was on fire,” Mr Martin said. “I couldn’t contact again her and had no idea where the kids were or anything like that.”
Mr Martin was relieved to learn before he arrived at the house that his family had got out safely, but felt he might never get over the loss of his red cedar home.
“I feel utter devastation,” he said. “You’ve just lost everything you own, everything you’ve worked for and built up.”
The Martins managed to save a pet cockatoo, but another perished in the fire along with the family’s belongings.
“There’s nothing to salvage,” he said.
“I guess it’s a question of clearing it and starting again.”
Even so, Mr Martin said he had been overwhelmed by the response from The Patch Primary School, where his daughters are pupils, and other members of the community who had given clothes, money and words of support for the family.
“I’d like to thank all of them,” he said. “They’ve been totally amazing.”
Eleven fire vehicles and between 45 and 50 firefighters from Monbulk, Kallista, Belgrave, Silvan, Olinda and Bayswater attended the fire, which broke out about 5.30pm.
Incident Controller Dave Daly of Monbulk Fire Brigade said every room in the house was on fire when the first unit arrived at 5.36pm, with flames leaping about three metres above the roof.
Mr Daly said it took a considerable amount of time for firefighters to control the blaze because of the intense heat and extent of the fire, as well as a lack of fire hydrants along the road.
Nevertheless, he said he was pleased with the response to a particularly severe house fire.
“For a house to be fully involved like that is certainly rare,” he said. “I hope we don’t have another job like that in a hurry.”
The fire came on a day when the Country Fire Authority (CFA) was put under considerable strain in the Hills due to a series of false alarms.
Monbulk CFA Captain Ross Lever said the Baynes Park Road fire was the brigade’s sixth call of the day.
“If people see smoke we urge them to do an investigation to see if there’s any fire before they call us,” he said. “Otherwise it puts great stress on the brigade.”
Even so, Mr Lever said crews had responded well to the call to the Martin’s home.
“Our heart goes out the family. There’s not much we could do, unfortunately.”
