Sam Morgan and her children escape from Trafalgar garage fire twice
A young girl’s quick thinking helped herself and her little brother escape from a garage fire that destroyed irreplaceable family items and memories.
Bass Coast News
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A Gippsland family have been left devastated after a fire ripped through their garage, destroying “bucketloads” of items, including family photo albums, the kids’ drawings and keepsake boxes.
Trafalgar mum Sam Morgan was home with her two children, Amelia and Charlie, while her partner Adam was working when the blaze started just before 7pm Thursday.
While in the lounge room with Charlie, Ms Morgan saw the lights at the back of the house switch off and heard Amelia scream from the bathroom.
Thinking it was a power outage, Ms Morgan went outside to check the switchboard and saw the garage engulfed in flames.
“I ran towards it to see if there was anything I could sort of do, but it was beyond my capabilities,” she said.
“My children had ran out the back door when they saw the fire — and this is where my daughter needs a gold medal — she grabbed her little brother by the hand and ran to the front of the house.”
Ms Morgan met her children out the front and Amelia said she would take Charlie to the neighbour’s house for safety.
Ms Morgan then tried to extinguish the flames with a hose but heard an explosion, thinking a gas bottle had burst.
“So I got on the phone to triple-0 in a complete panic — I just stood there with the hose until firefighters arrived,” she said.
When the fire brigade arrived, Ms Morgan sat with her dog, Luna, watching the “chaos unfold.”
“I started mourning what was in there and what we were losing,” she said.
“The whole street came to me with torches and candles since we had no electricity — everyone just brought an abundance of light for us.”
However, the next morning, Ms Morgan’s neighbour alerted her the garage had caught fire again.
“My children woke up to that chaos — but they handled it really well,” she said.
Ms Morgan, who lost half her equipment, as well as Adam’s painting gear, said the fire also destroyed valued family items including Amelia’s bike and both children’s keepsake boxes.
“Like their favourite baby blankets, their first drawings and family photo albums that are very irreplaceable and the only copies you’ve got, they’re all gone,” she said.
“I can’t be near a flame anymore and the smell of anything burning, I can’t tolerate it.”
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Ms Morgan praised her daughter Amelia for her quick thinking in saving her brother.
“Absolute superhero that girl,” she said.
“We’re getting by, we’ve got to soldier on.”
A CFA spokesman said three CFA units from Trafalgar and Yarragon attended the scene alongside FRV.
“Upon arrival, crews found a structure well alight and immediately commenced suppression efforts,” the spokesman said.
The incident was deemed safe at 7.50pm and the cause of both fires are yet to be determined.
Friend Claire Fifett has created a GoFundMe page for the Morgan family to help them recover.
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