Back on her feet

It was Friday night, April 25 - Anzac Day - and Linda was visiting her mother in Kilmore.

Her nephew had his debutante ball, and Linda wanted to be part of the special occasion.

The last thing she expected was for a fire to nearly engulf her home, leaving her unit on Hay Ave uninhabitable.

But as it turned out, Linda’s life was about to take a series of unexpected turns.

“[My neighbour] was hysterical,” Linda said, looking back to the phone call on that fateful night.

“She kept saying, ‘I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry’.”

Although her brindle Staffy-cross, Destiny, was with her at her mother’s home, Linda still had a lifetime’s worth of belongings in her unit.

There was a framed photograph of her with her grandfather when Linda was just a baby.

It’s the only copy of the photograph Linda knows of and, along with a teddy bear given to her by her late grandfather when she was just a girl, one of her most precious belongings.

“I was a little bit numb, thinking, ‘Oh God, I’ve lost this, I’ve lost that’,” Linda said.

But more important to Linda was the wellbeing of her friend and neighbour, Andy, who had been pulled from the flames of the unit beside hers and rushed to hospital.

“At this stage, he was still in hospital. And I didn’t know how bad he was,” Linda said.

Soon enough, Linda found out her friend was recovering after being treated for smoke inhalation.

“I was very relieved to hear that,” she said.

“And then I went back to worrying about what I had left and what was gone.”

Even after firefighters extinguished the worst of the flames, the smoke remained so thick that, for some time, it was impossible to assess the full extent of the damage.

Much to her relief, Linda later returned to find the only things destroyed by the fire, which had seared a hole in the ceiling of her kitchen, were her coffee machine, kettle and a porcelain food bowl for Destiny.

Luckily, firefighters had extinguished the fire before it could wreck any further damage.

But the blaze had left her unit uninhabitable, and Linda found herself uprooted, without a roof over her head.

Fortunately, she was able to live with her mother before securing another unit nearby.

Finding her feet again while moving her belongings to her new place, Linda said the last few months since the fire had been hectic.

She’s working her way through her furniture and belongings, which are covered with a fine soot and stink of smoke.

“I’ve got to wash and clean everything, even stuff that was in the wardrobes,” she said.

But even so, she’s counting her lucky stars that the fire ended where and when it did.

“Fortunately, no-one died or was seriously injured in the fire,” she said.

“I’m just glad that everyone involved was safe.”