Florencia Chen was at a party in Sydney when the first ominous wafts of smoke moved across her family’s Bellambi home in the early minutes of August 5.
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It was many hours later before she responded to text messages urging her to call her mother. By then, the Pioneer Road townhouse and its contents had been reduced to charred rubble.
“My mother said, ‘it’s burnt down. Everything’s gone – the whole house’,” Ms Chen said.
“The first thing I said was, ‘is everyone alive?’.”
“I've seen people on TV lose their homes to floods and bushfires, but having experienced it firsthand, I realise now there's so many levels of loss involved when you lose a family home you spent so much of your life in.
“Being left with just the clothes on your back – it’s devastating, not just financially but psychologically.”
A professional photographer with 10 years worth of magazine work behind her, Ms Chen lost thousands of dollars worth of equipment in the blaze, as well as a two guitars, a $6000 guitar amp, a wedding ring, hundreds of negatives and – most upsetting – photographs of her late father which cannot be replaced.
Ms Chen’s brother Timothy Esseling (21) and sister Monica Esseling (24) were home when the fire sparked about 12.40am. They left with their mobile phones, Mr Esseling’s laptop and the clothes they were wearing.
Ms Esseling said she had come out of the shower to find the loungeroom shrouded in smoke several minutes earlier.
“It [the fire] was inside a laptop that was charging,” she said.
“I tried to smother the flame, but a few seconds later everything was going up. When the fire started spreading around the couch and the blinds we realised we had to get out there and then. My heart sunk; I didn’t know what to do.”
Though the home was insured, it’s contents were not. The family has moved into their other property – a two-bedroom Corrimal unit – while they await rebuilding. Meantime, supporters have launched a fundraising effort aimed at replacing Ms Chen’s photography gear.
Visit mycause.com.au/page/133357/florencias-house-fire-fund for more information.