The fire that swept through Harcourt after the cool change on Friday evening was a nasty one. It moved fast, jumping from ridge to valley, leaping the Calder Freeway and making the Bendigo railway line impassable. Witnesses describe bits of hardwood sleepers dropping burning from the overpass on Victoria Road. It also razed the region’s economically crucial Coolstore.
“I was trying to get back here [to the house],” says Tyrone, “but I couldn’t because Coolstore Road was burning. Then there was a lady wandering around, and Raewyn had to get her to safety.”
“We’ll probably rebuild,” Tyrone says. It’s not certain if he’s talking about his house or the town – or both.
This fire, though, struck at something important to Harcourt – a set of warehouses and buildings called the Coolstore.
Established in 1917, it’s a farmers’ cooperative that was the economic and community centre of an entire region – what one devastated business owner called “a pub with no beer”. Every day, says wine making business owner Paul Taylor, 20 to 30 people would come through to pick up or drop off something to do with a diverse range of businesses.
“It was a meeting place – where the potato farmer bumps into the grape grower, or the beer brewer,” Taylor says.
Now it’s twisted metal hanging over tens of thousands of cracked and broken wine bottles, burned apples, scorched potatoes and equipment melted beyond identification. Some parts are still smouldering, the smell of burning produce acrid in the air.
“Literally everything is gone,” Taylor whispers.
Brian Nunn picks his way through thousands of burned apples at the Harcourt Cooperative Coolstore.Credit: Jason South
Stephen Upton’s huge shed here stored furniture that he and wife Sam hired out to real estate agents for staging houses. Before Friday it was as full as it had ever been – the new year period is quiet for house sales. But today you could be forgiven for thinking it was empty. Apart from a few bedsprings and table frames, their entire stock has simply been vaporised.
“Holy shit. Holy shit. Holy shit,” Stephen says as he peeks through the half-melted door. “There’s nothing there.”
Sam weeps openly in the yard. Their house is fine, their business in ashes. She spent the night with the dogs in safety near Bendigo while Stephen drove CFA trucks for half the night trying to save Harcourt from a multi-headed inferno.
‘Holy shit’: Stephen and Sam Upton among the wreckage of their business. Credit: Jason South
Two or three times, Stephen says, their truck was nearly burned over by a fire that seemed to spring from nowhere.
“It was so aggressive, so huge. Everywhere you looked there was something to do,” he says. He’s had two hours sleep and looks wired.
Fire tore through the tiny central Victorian goldfields town of Harcourt where more than 50 homes were lost. David Foley and his wife was building a mixed tourism and farming buisness when everything but his tiny home was destroyed.Credit: Jason South
Out on the edge of town, Harcourt’s newest addition, the Victorian Miniature Railway survived. The school and kindergarten are fine, thanks to the work of the CFA. So’s the town swimming pool.
To the north, though, where another of the fingers of flame whipped through, David Foley is hosing ground that is still hot and smoking. His land is blackened and his shed in ruins. Inside were the furniture and fittings he was intending to put in the house he was building.
In Harcourt, David Foley and his wife were building a mixed tourism and farming business when everything but his pink tiny home was destroyed.Credit: Jason South
He and his wife were planning a new mixed farming and tourism business – plans that now are on hold, if not scuppered entirely.
The only thing that survived the fire here was the bright pink “tiny house” where they lived as they were building. That’s thanks to a neighbour who protected his own property then chased the fire over the road to save David’s. David wasn’t there.
“I’m not a chaser, I’m a runner,” he says with a jaunty smile that belies his circumstances. He was out of town.
And now? “I’m not processing it. It’s just happened. I’m just in practical mode. If my wife was here you’d get the tears.”
Then he excuses himself. He has the remains of a fire to put out.
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