The fire that destroyed the newly-created Menzshed at Omaio Village in Stoke has left founder Rex Lucas “distraught”.
Rex could do nothing but stand there and watch as his tools and thousands of hours of work went up in flames, when the shed and caretakers area caught fire last Wednesday.
“We nearly had a heart attack when we came back to see all the flames, firefighters and people outside the shed,” says Rex’s wife Pam.
Fire units from Stoke and Nelson arrived on the scene around 3.30pm and had to rip open the fence amidst gas bottle explosions to get to the heart of the fire.
Stoke station officer Dereck Nilsen says the Menzshed and a couple of outbuilding were fully involved in fire when they arrived.
“At this stage we’re unsure of the cause, but there is extensive damage throughout the property. Other than that we’ve got everything under control. No one was injured or around at the time, which is a bonus.”
Rex set up the ‘Menzshed’ in June last year as a workshop for retired men in and around the village, the Oceania Group provided the shed and Rex kitted it out with all his tools.
“I’m distraught, and it wasn’t just my shed, it was for everyone to use.”
Insurance will cover the shed and all the tools lost, but not the trailer full of fold-out wooden furniture that Rex was days away from taking to the weekend market.
Rex says each piece takes him about a week and a half and he’d been working on the trailer load alone for a good couple of years.
Pam says its so disheartening to see all Rex’s work turned to ash.
“The trailer was already packed up ready to go to market, there would have been a couple of thousand dollars worth of furniture in it and now all we’re left with is two or three pieces that we might be able to resurrect.”
“You can’t even see his machinery, there’s nothing left, it’s all gone, there’s nothing to even say that it was there.”
In the meantime, support from the community is flooding in.
“We’ve had so many amazing phone calls from people we don’t know offering us machinery, we could probably have three of anything.”
To see the video and article on the fire, Click Here.
