By Kath Gannaway
Yellingbo resident and local business operator, Paul Drysdale, was working less than a minute up the road from his Centre Road house when it was destroyed by fire on Friday, 3 February.
Mr Drysdale went to work at the nearby Drysdale Chaff Mill around 5.40 on Friday morning.
He said he had been at work a short time when one of his workmates alerted him to thick black smoke, saying it looked like someone’s house was on fire.
In the seconds it took him to get to his house, the Yellingbo CFA captain, Paul Spinks, was there and within a minute a fire truck arrived.
“I knew there was no saving it; the roof was about to collapse in,” said Mr Drysdale, who went back to work and cut chaff for a couple of hours.
“I just thought there was no point standing around watching my house burn down.”
Captain Paul Spinks said he was on his way to work when he came across the fire around 6.30am by which time the house was beyond saving with flames pouring out the windows.
“We had 10 fire brigades attend and managed to protect exposures and contain the fire to the house, but unfortunately Paul has now lost his home,” he said.
Captain Spinks said the cause of the fire was believed to be a battery charger malfunction.
Mr Drysdale said he had lost everything including his collection of remote control planes and cars and computer he had spent a lot of time building.
“It’s horrible, and it’s a massive inconvenience, but I’ve got a roof over my head for the time being and I can rebuild,” he said.
He praised the CFA volunteers who, he said, were on the scene straight away.
“I don’t know how they do what they do. They do their regular jobs and then turn out – they did what they could.”
