STACEY Durrant was at home with her five children when two of her girls came running inside, shouting “fire, fire”.
Her first instinct was that the kids had been up to mischief in the yard, before she saw the family’s prized possessions up in flames.
An almost-new quad bike buggy and a fitted-out camper trailer were destroyed in minutes.
A neighbour across the road had spotted the flames and called Triple Zero before Stacey could pick up the phone herself.
“There’s nothing we could do,” she said.
“We are just lucky that it didn’t get to the house.”
Stacey and her partner Steven Davis had just spent the weekend camping at Pennefather and the buggy and trailer were being aired out to dry.
“That’s what you do in Cape York, when you go camping you have to let things dry out when you get home,” she said.
“We’ve got camera footage and know that the buggy was the cause of the fire. I’ve been in contact with the manufacturer to see if there’s anything they can do because it is less than a year old.
“So far we’ve had no luck but we’ll keep trying. They have had a recall on them before because of fires starting when the buggies were operating, but this one hadn’t been used that day.”
COMMUNITY SUPPORT
SINCE the fire, there has been an outreach of community support from Weipa residents.
“We don’t really need anything but we definitely appreciate those who have offered,” Stacey said.
“Alex from Mitre 10 was just awesome, though. We lost half of our Christmas lights and he just offered to replace them.”
Alex Johnson said it was the least he could do.
“We support the community that supports us. That’s what makes Weipa so special,” he said.
The positive is that while they will be $40,000 out of pocket, it hasn’t cancelled their Christmas.
“Thankfully the fire didn’t go underneath the house. That’s where we’ve been hiding the Christmas presents,” Stacey said.
She urged others to check their insurance policies.
“We’ve learnt the hard way but hopefully we can help someone else avoid this kind of situation.”
