After sheltering people and animals with nowhere else to go for 37 years, a Adelaide Street house was consumed by fire in under three minutes on Tuesday 21 July.
Sean “Ari” Laver, children Chloe and Jay, and housemate Lucas Kirby escaped. His wife Leanne Laver and best mate Phillip Gordon were killed, and almost everything they owned was destroyed.
“Fire is an animal that’s almost alive. It’s a predator,” Ari said.
“It is unforgiving,” Chloe said. “It doesn’t care who or what it’s taking.”
About 3pm, Ari heard a thump and thought Leanne, who used a stick or walker, had fallen.
“Something’s burning,” she called from the kitchen table.
There was faint smoke but no flame. Seconds later, the alarms sounded as smoke dropped from the ceiling.
“We’ve got a fire,” Ari shouted. “Grab an animal. Get out.”
He saw Leanne near the front door and thought she would follow. Chloe grabbed a cat.
Ari ran downstairs for the hose, but within 20 to 30 seconds the underside of the house was engulfed.
Jay was still underneath when burning debris fell, scorching his arm and leg. He inhaled smoke and fell face-first into mud from a burst water tank.
“I remember being face-down with my eyes closed in the mud,” Jay said.
“My arms felt warm. My back was hot.
“I was on fire.”
His family’s screams forced him to move.
Ari turned back towards the stairs, but heat and flames blocked him.
He called for Leanne. She answered once, but when he told her to come towards the door, he heard nothing more.
At the rear, Lucas tried to force Phillip outside, but Phillip pushed past him and went back in.
Jay recalled Phillip once saying: “If that house ever goes up, I’m getting my cats or I’m going with it.”
Chloe went inside twice to rescue animals. On her second attempt, smoke hid the people she could hear below the balcony.
Vehicles exploded, burning material collapsed and electrical lines fell nearby.
Less than three minutes had passed.
For the family, those minutes have not ended.
Ari replays passing Leanne near the door. Chloe wishes she had gone back once more. Jay remembers searching for another way inside.
Ari’s mother once told him the two saddest words in the English language were “if only”. Those words now follow them.
Leanne had spent 42 years beside Ari and was fighting stage-four lymphoma when she died. When money was scarce, she sometimes pawned her jewellery so the family could eat.
“She never put herself ahead of anybody else,” Ari said.
“My wife walked beside me for 42 years. When I couldn’t walk, she carried me.
“And this last year with the cancer fight, finally I was in a place where I carried her.”
Phillip lived with the family for 35 years and helped raise the children when Ari’s disability kept him in bed.
“He was my brother in every way that matters,” Ari said.
Chloe arrived 13 years ago with only the clothes she was wearing.
“They took me in,” she said.
Lucas later arrived in much the same way and became family.
Cats followed too.
“We collected cats like we did children — any hardship case,” Ari said.
The survivors are in temporary accommodation, but Ari fears they could be homeless within weeks.
“I need a house where I can put my kids and my cats,” he said.
Support organisations want to help but have no suitable house to offer.
“They would give you anything they had to give, but they’ve got nothing to give,” Ari said.
“I’m frightened. In a few weeks, we could be living in a park.”
Despite their losses, the family still intends to help Lucas.
“I’ll try and look after him,” Ari said.
“I took him in.”
HOW TO HELP
Donations to support the family can be made via their GoFundMe.
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