By Margaret Maccoll
Wearing the same clothes as the day of the blaze, the owner of an Eerwah Vale home destroyed by fire on Sunday morning was still on Monday “too upset to talk” about the loss.
He did say he and his wife and two sons were unharmed, were living with family in Noosa and had been overwhelmed by the kindness of the community.
Queensland Fire and Emergency Service fire investigator Ash Dickson said there was so much damage the cause of the fire would be determined through a “process of elimination” ruling out what didn’t cause it.
From a firefighting point of view, with all inhabitants safe and all pets accounted for it had been a good outcome, he said.
“(The firefighters) did a good job to contain the area and no-one was injured,” he said.
QFES Cooroy was alerted to the fire on Browns Creek Road by multiple triple zero calls at 10.45am on Sunday.
Captain Brad Ensbey said two appliances from Cooroy and one from Nambour arrived to find three quarters of the house engulfed in flames.
They called for backup from Pomona and Noosa.
“We had 16 urban firefighters and 10 rural,” he said.
“Our action was to make sure everyone was safe, protect out-buildings and control the fire.”
He said a pool on the property had been emptied and there was a limited amount in the water tanks.
The rural vehicles pumped water from the creek to the urban appliances to extinguish the fire in the single storey wooden house.
Ash said the fire was not being treated as suspicious, and it would take a couple of weeks to determine the cause.
