Fifty years ago, the workers from Horsham's newly opened State government offices wandered through the blackened shell of their headquarters.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Just hours/days before on July 17 1971, the building had been engulfed in flames, explosions tearing through it after a welding accident set the building alight.
Jack Gillespie, then-head of the Forests Commission, which sat at the rear of the building on the third floor, recounted his experience to the Mail-Times in 2009.
As head of a department, Mr Gillespie was one of the first people allowed back into the building after the fire.
According to Mr Gillespie, the fire had gutted the building, the damage devastating.
READ MORE:
Mr Gillespie had been at home making lunch for his two children when he heard the State government building was alight.
The fire was already burning fiercely when he arrived on the scene.
''Firefighters were on the roof of the SEC building and the post office trying to reach the fire and there was a river of water gushing down the stairs the whole time,'' he said.
''I was up throughout the afternoon talking to the regional officer as to how the fire was going; did they need anything?
''We had hoses and pumps for forest fire fighting, but no-one was on weekend duty because it wasn't yet summer, and we couldn't get them.''
It wasn't until after the fire had been put out, that the true extent of the damage was revealed.
OTHER NEWS:
''The top floor was ruined and the land officer draftsman's records, which were up to 50 years old, were saturated,'' he said.
''The Agriculture Department lost every scrap of paper relating to the activities of the department over a great length of time.
''And all the plans in the Lands Department, which were highly valuable, were soaked. They were stored in horizontal wooden drawers which filled with water.
''Luckily for our department, we had recently moved a lot of our plans out of a similar system into a vertical metal cabinet, which didn't allow for the accumulation of water.''
Our journalists work hard to provide local, up-to-date news to the community. This is how you can continue to access our trusted content:
- Bookmark www.mailtimes.com.au/
- Make sure you are signed up for our breaking and regular headlines newsletters
- Follow us on Twitter: twitter.com/Wim_Mail_Times
- Follow us on Instagram www.instagram.com/wimmeramailtimes/