Town fires up

By Sarah Schwager
CRANBOURNE is rallying behind a family left devastated when their home was gutted by fire on Monday.
Sandra and Michael Fox, and their children Lisa, 12, and Jamie, 14, could not believe it when they received a call saying half of their Clairmont Avenue home had been destroyed.
The fire started in Lisa’s room about 11am and spread to the roof space.
The grade six Rangebank Primary School student was shattered on Monday when she learnt all her belongings were lost.
“My room has no walls,” she said. “It’s all destroyed.”
Mrs Fox said they were fortunate that neighbours quickly alerted the fire brigade so the house had not burnt to the ground.
“We just have to go through now and see what we can salvage,” she said. “Some of the furniture looks okay, just very wet and dirty. The only thing is we’ve got nowhere to put it.”
Cranbourne fire officer Dave Renkin said it took three fire crews, two from Cranbourne and one from Hallam, nearly four hours to keep the fire under control and mop up any remaining fire hazards.
The family will stay with Mrs Fox’s mother and Lisa with a friend until they can sort out repairing the house. “It will be six to eight weeks before we can even think about getting back in,” Mrs Fox said.
The house was insured but not the contents, so everything lost or damaged in the fire must be replaced.
“There’s just lots of heat and smoke damage and also damage from the fire brigade’s water as well,” Mrs Fox said. “The fire was obviously very hot because everything’s melted – the television, the air-conditioner.”
Police are still investigating and the arson squad is still determining the cause of the fire.
Mrs Fox said she was concerned someone may have broken into the house.
She said some small items were missing, including MP3s and some games, and pots and pans were stacked up at Lisa’s door.
Mrs Fox said she wanted to thank the fire crews, police and neighbours for helping save their home.
Rangebank Primary School welfare officer Allan Tibballs said the school community was eager to do everything they could to help the devastated family.
Mr Tibballs said in a few weeks when the family was able to start moving back into the house, the school would be accepting donations of clothes, cutlery, vouchers, toys and other basic household items. However, he said he could not accept cash donations. For information contact Rangebank Primary School on 5996 8900.
Anyone who may have seen suspicious activity around the house can contact Senior Constable Steve Regnier at Cranbourne CIU on 5991 0600.