By Bridget Spinks
“Is the house on fire? Unless the house is on fire, don’t growl at each other,” Angela Tucci said she used to say to her family. That was before the fire swept through their home in Bromfield Drive, Kelmscott on 6 February; the fire that took theirs and more than 60 other houses in Kelmscott and Roleystone.
Angela, her husband Sergio and their two children, Talia, 16, and Michael, 12, have to agree on everything now.
Nineteen days after the fire, The Record visited them in their temporary accommodation at Angela’s mother’s house in Brookdale, where around the kitchen table they unfolded what they’ve been through.
6 February
The morning the fire came to visit, Talia was studying for her TEE maths while Angela was having a lie down on the couch.
When they realised what was happening, mother and daughter had 15 minutes at best to scramble out of the house.
There wasn’t time to evacuate, Angela said.
Angela’s husband Sergio was around the corner in Clifton Hills.
“Put your tools down and get here now,” she told him over the phone.
Michael was on a ferry coming back to Fremantle when he found out about the fire. He had been allowed to sleep over at a friend’s house in Mandurah the night before.
Five hundred metres from the harbour he could see the black smoke where the hills were.
A friend’s mum told him what happened. At first he thought it was a joke.
But when he found out that his house was ‘gone,’ he just went and lay down on the bed.
Meanwhile, back in Bromfield Drive, his mother was saving his pet lizard of four years, a dwarfed western bearded dragon, while his sister was saving his moneybox.
Talia also grabbed the computer hard drive, and Angela grabbed a set of Rosary beads that Talia had bought for her.
Sergio said they stayed until the house caught on fire but when he looks back he can see that there was never anything they could have done to save their home; it was in the fire’s path.
“The fire had a mind of its own,” Talia said.
“We keep saying thank goodness we’re alive,” Angela said.
Starting over
A few weeks before the fire, Angela’s father had passed away.
They prayed a lot together when her father was in hospital, Angela said, but since losing her home she has taken to praying the Rosary daily.
“I thank God every morning,” she said. “We shouldn’t take this for granted any more. It’s a miracle that nobody was hurt by this fire,” she said.
“And that’s a credit to the firies and everyone who was involved,” Sergio added. The experience of seeing their house burn down has strengthened them as a family and given them perspective on what is important in life, they said.
Angela said they were close before but are now yet closer still.
“I thank God that none of my children were hurt because at any moment, both Talia and I could have been stuck in the house.”
“There could have been many different scenarios,” Sergio said.
Talia has realised that people are “way too materialistic” while Angela is definitely not going to store up any more towels and tupperware for her children’s glory boxes.
“Think of it as a good way to de-clutter,” Sergio said, addressing his wife.
Looking back
When Michael, who’s in Year 7 at Mazenod College in Lesmurdie, went back to assess the damage, he was hopeful that there might be something left.
He went to where his bedroom used to be, he said, but there was only half a bedroom left and he thought, ‘I used to be able to sleep there. I had stuff there.’
He saw the chilies and tomatoes in the vegetable patch that he and his mum were going to dry out. He realised they didn’t need to do that any more.
“It kills you sometimes when you think like that,” Sergio said.
He saw two of his old bikes. The handlebars had melted off the one he liked while the one that he never wanted anyway only suffered minor damage.
A tree that they wished was taken in the fire happened to remain behind as did the cubby they had built and a tyre swing that he and Luke had made.
A gnome that the Tucci’s painted when Michael was a one-year-old is still sitting in the front garden of their old home while a pizza oven Sergio built by hand is left standing out the back.
Angela said that seeing Sergio’s pizza oven was a sign that the family had to stay. Sergio, who’s a bricklayer by trade, built the oven with fire kiln bricks and Angela said that a lot of love and history went into it.
“We can still cook with that pizza oven,” Sergio said.
Michael said he was surprised by what was left behind.
“Whatever Dad built, stayed,” he said.
Looking ahead
Sergio isn’t dwelling on the past. He said that he and Angela have to be positive.
“Now it’s history as it always is. We’ll rebuild,” Sergio said.
“People are generous, people rally round and support you.”
Armadale Reptile & Wildlife Centre is looking after Michael’s pet lizard and feeding it well on a diet of pink mice, rice, broccoli and rats. Michael visits his pet on the weekend.
Talia, who’s in year 12 at St Brigid’s, Lesmurdie, is grateful that the fire came at the beginning of the year as she doesn’t have as many TEE notes to catch up on.
The teachers are helping her get back on track and happy to help her catch up at recess and lunch.
The boarders at the school have given her an open invitation to stay whenever she likes, she said.
Epilogue
On 1 March this year, the Tucci family would have spent six years living in their 1987 ‘pole frame house;’ a split-level timber and brick home.
“I had my dream home for five years,” Angela said.
“Yes, and now you can get another one, Mum,” Talia said.
A melted steel frame still stands on the property.
Talia is hoping that demolition happens soon.
Even though they are planning to rebuild, Michael knows it won’t happen overnight.
“You have to wait till you get the money, then you have to level it out before you can start building,” he said.
“It’ll take six months to clean up and a couple of years to rebuild,” Sergio said.
“We have our moments but you’ve got to look forward. The plan is to take our time. For the first six months, we’re planning,” he said.