4 Short Street Harden was destroyed by fire early Saturday morning.
Harden Fire and Rescue were called at approximately 12:45am to the home to find it engulfed in flames. Four occupants of the residence had to escape the blaze in the early hours of Saturday morning.
Captain Wal Leonow said that initial reports were that there were people inside, however it became evident that the property had been vacated by residents as the fire took hold.
Next door neighbour Matthew Gibbons noticed something was wrong when his television set began to flicker. He said “I came outside to see the owner attempting to put out the fire with a hose and then helped assist the owner with the children before turning off the gas bottles to the property.”
Captain Leonow said “We were thankful that we could establish early that no-one was inside and we began working on the fire to extinguish it.” Leonow said that the crews from Harden, Young and local RFS crews worked for over 2 hours to contain the blaze.
A man had to be taken to Harden Hospital due to burns to his back and breathing difficulties and was later transported to Concord Hospital at 4:30am via helicopter. Nearby residents were also attended to by emergency services for smoke inhalation before being released.
Leonow said that there came a point when there was nothing more that could be done to attempt to save the house and that efforts turned to containing the fire to prevent damage to neighbouring properties. A 4wd was parked out the front of the property and was unable to be moved before the fire took hold.
The local RFS crews assited by attacking the flames with their hoses from the rear off the property whilst the Harden and Young crews worked from the front. A Harden Shire Council tanker provided water to the RFS crew and the Harden and Young crews utilised mains water.
Staff from Essential Energy arrived and isolated the power to prevent any danger due from the power supply to the properties in the street.
An investigation into the fire was conducted over Sunday and Monday and it is currently deemed that the fire is not suspicious.
Captain Leonow wanted to thank all emergency services staff for their professionalism during the night and made mention of both a police detective and inspector who assisted with manning the hoses.
Emergency services will be holding a special demonstration at the show this weekend including the dangers of fire.
