Pregnant Mount Morgan house fire victim recounts terrifying ordeal| VIDEO
A pregnant Qld woman has described the terrifying moment she went from cooking chips to fleeing her burning home with her pet dogs as flames destroyed everything she owned. PHOTOS, VIDEO.
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It was meant to be the place where she raised her child but now the burnt-out remnants of Luwana Tumai-Lynch’s home are all that remains.
Speaking to this publication as the smell of smoke was still permeating from the home going into the weekend, the Mt Morgan 23-year-old, who is 15 weeks pregnant, recalled the moment the fire at the Dee St property was sparked by a kitchen accident on Tuesday.
“I was just cooking some chips on the stove with some oil in the pot,” Ms Tumai-Lynch said.
“The oil got too hot and as I went to put the chips into the oil, the whole pot had ignited into a flame.
“It freaked me out … it was quite a big fire.
“So I grabbed the pot and I tried to go out the back door.
“I have a safety chain lock on the back door, as I was trying to undo it I was screaming … the oil had spilt onto the ground as well as the flame.
“The whole back end of my house just lit up.”
Ms Tumai-Lynch tried to find something to smother the flames but with back of her house well alight it was a hopeless situation.
Despite the obvious gravity of her situation, Ms Tumai-Lynch immediately feared for her neighbours’ safety.
“The first thing I thought of was next door because they have a little girl,” she said.
“So I just ran out the front and screamed as loud as I could so they could hear me.
“She (the neighbour) came out and I just yelled at her that my house was on fire and ‘please keep your little girl (inside)’ because I was just scared of what was going to happen.
“It was quite big and it got big really fast.”
With the neighbours aware of the danger, Ms Tumai-Lynch turned her attention to her three dogs.
“I had one dog with me inside,” she said.
“She ran back in because she was freaking out.
“So I ran back in there and she was laying in the bed and I just sort of grabbed her, and by that time, the whole house was just black smoke.
“I couldn’t see, I was crouching down, and I don’t know what made me grab my car keys. My car keys were the only thing I grabbed out of the whole house, it’s the only thing I got out.”
After safely evacuating one of her dogs, Ms Tumai-Lynch went round the back of the house to get the other two and then all three ran to safety.
She believed it was a miracle she and the dogs survived.
“Within seconds by the time we got to my front gate, my whole back end of my house just exploded,” she said.
“All the windows came out and the flames came out.”
Despite the terrifying scenes, it took every fibre of her being not to run back and try and save some of her property but thoughts of what the fire and smoke could do to her, or her unborn baby kept her outside.
“If I did, I probably would have ended up dead myself, or my baby,” she said.
It eventually took seven fire crews to put out the blaze.
Meanwhile, Ms Tumai-Lynch was inconsolable on the side of the road while her dogs were being taken care of by a resident nearby.
She was eventually taken to hospital suffering emotional distress.
“I just remember sitting here (on the side of the road) and just sobbing because I was just watching everything I have go,” she said.
“That’s why I think they took me up to hospital pretty much straight away because I was quite worried about my baby because of the stress and panic I was going through.”
What made the situation even sadder was that Ms Tumai-Lynch had just moved to Mt Morgan from where she was living near Dubbo and bought the house at the beginning of the year.
Nothing was insured at the time of the fire.
Ms Tumai-Lynch was later released from hospital and is currently staying with her family in Mt Morgan.
Meanwhile, the Mt Morgan community has rallied around the mum-to-be, launching several GoFundMe’s.
One of the fundraisers is being organised by Mt Morgan Rainbow Café owner Melissa Matheson, who when interviewed, said prior to the fire she had Ms Tumai-Lynch had never met and she created the GoFundMe out of a sense of community spirit.
“I only met her yesterday (Thursday, June 5) when she came in and thanked me,” she said.
A further community event is being held in Dubbo, with money raised going to Ms Tumai-Lynch.
The 23-year-old said the support she had received from the residents of Mt Morgan was unbelievable.
“I’ve never ever received so much support and help and care in my life,” she said.
“I would like to say a massive, massive thank you from the bottom of my heart and it means a lot to me.”
As for her plans for the future Ms Tumai-Lynch will first demolish the remains of her house as she believes it is a safety issue.
“It is so burnt, and it is so gutted, it doesn’t take much wind or anything for debris to come off the house,” she said.
She then plans to continue living in Mt Morgan, where she works as a support worker, and get things in order for her and her baby.
“The support and generosity of people, it’ll be so hard not to stay here,” she said.
“The community here is absolutely amazing.”
If you want to donate to the various GoFundMe pages you can do so by visiting the GoFundMe website.
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