Kangaroo Island’s Western Districts Football and Netball Club wiped out by fires
Its photos, trophies and club records have been destroyed but the community behind KI’s Western Districts Football and Netball Club survives. And they’re vowing to come back.
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They were known as the “club in The Scrub”, a team for men and women around the island who wanted a community as much as an association to play for.
But in a flash, fire tore through the Western Districts Football and Netball Club sports complex and club rooms, destroying decades of history and leaving the club devastated.
The club’s football president Tony Nolan said the teams would take inspiration from their theme song When The Saints Go Marching In and march on.
Aware that sporting clubs are the beating hearts of rural communities, Mr Nolan said it was important to rebuild and give the community a place to be together.
“We are strong, we are resilient and we will march on as a club,” he said.
“We had a really successful year in 2019, we cleaned up. We won the A-grade football and dominated the netball.
“But all of our photos from the last 50 years of teams and our records were in there.
“I think it is important for us to rebuild. I know it is a hard word to say at the moment and people have way bigger problems.
“We need to have a place to come together. Sporting clubs are the fabric of the community, especially this one out here.
“We come from miles and miles away to play for this great club. It’s not going to look like its former glory but we will get something happening.”
Living up to its nickname, the Western Districts oval is surrounded on all sides by thick native scrub.
This afternoon, a group of about six people sought refuge in the centre of the oval as fire raged around them. The group watched as the firefront, ever shifting in fickle winds, destroyed the club rooms and generated enough heat to melt a plastic slide in the playground.
The fire front spared the nearby CFS shed and scorched only the scoreboard.
The oval was but one scene of devastation among many on the western side of the island.
Dozens of destroyed houses could be seen from the road, with fears that the official number could rise towards the 86 homes destroyed at Cudlee Creek.
Hundreds of livestock were killed as the fire front tore across paddocks. Yesterday, farmers were going through the humane but devastating process of euthanising horrifically burnt but still breathing animals, gunshots ringing out across the fields.
Pine and blue gum plantations were stripped of all colour and rendered in the black and white of soot and ash.
The rows of carefully planted trees, now destroyed, could spell the end of plans to build a deepwater port to the island’s north to carry the fully grown timber.
A truck driver was lucky to escape the fire when the heat of the blaze melted air brakes connected to his trailer. The driver was forced to abandon the truck but was luckily picked up by a passing driver.
Ahead of the fire front, hundreds of locals and visitors were forced to evacuate.
Late on Friday, the alarm bell sounded over the central town of Parndana that had been acting as the CFS forward command. The fire came within kilometres of the town before a wind change drove it away.
Kingscote and Penneshaw became the destination for people seeking refuge, spilling into relief centres and hotels.
Some locals were allowed to return to their homes yesterday, some finding them spared, others witness to the devastation of the Ravine fire.