MIKE Thorogood lives right across the road from the Seventh Day Adventist Church and was one of the first people to smell the smoke when the church caught fire on Friday evening.
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The blaze significantly damaged the newly-renovated building and took two fire crews two and a half hours to extinguish.
Mr Thorogood, an 80-year-old retired NSW fireman with 28 years experience working out of fire engines, told the Times about the smell that came to him before a noise and the flames.
“I could smell rubber (burning) before and I thought the fan got hot…so I felt it and, no it’s cool.”
Mr Thorogood had a desk fan on his lounge room floor for his small dog to doze in front of and stay cool, but even he was outside barking.
“The dog was making a row outside he must have smelled the smoke or something and knew something was wrong. I thought it must have been a cat, see?
“When I heard the bang I thought ‘Gee there’s something going on there’ and not long afterwards it (the church) was in flames.”
Mr Thorogood said emergency services were quickly on the scene.
“The police must have been going up the road or something and seen it, because they blocked the road off very quick,” he said.
“I went out the front and had a look and the police came and said ‘move’ and I said ‘I’m not moving, no’ the policeman told me I was in danger and I said ‘danger my eye! The place could fall down and it wouldn’t hurt any houses around it’ I’ve been in 28 years, I know what danger is.”
Mr Thorogood said he heard the noise before the fire at about 8.30pm.
The fire brigade attended, extin-guished the blaze and left. He said it flared up again between 11.30pm and 11.45pm.
“You normally leave someone on to watch all night when it’s something like that, for a second breakout,” Mr Thorogood said.
Inverell NSW Fire and Rescue Station commander, Captain Mark Savage said the brigade was originally called out about 8.30pm and when his teams arrived they found the eastern end the church engulfed in flames.
“We’ve had some fire investigation conducted and the likely cause seems to be an electrical fault, as to where, I’m not sure,” Captain Savage said.
“There’s a possible two seats. From what they’ve said it could be around some electrical appliances that were in the premises or that it was some wiring.
“It’s not suspicious. From what I’ve been told it is either some wiring or perhaps a fridge.”
Captain Savage said the brigade was called back to the building at 11.20pm and the team was there for about an hour.
“What quite often happens is unfortunately, due to the nature of the buildings and whatever, it’s hard to get into every nook and cranny and they sometimes re-ignite and they did have a call-back,” he said.
“Quite often we’ll get called back … it’s not an uncommon thing.
“You’re very lucky if you can get a structural fire out in one hit. We always go back at a later time.”
