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‘I was yelling at residents to get out’: Neighbour helps rescue people from New Farm blaze
By Cloe Read
On Saturday morning, when Iain heard an explosion, he ran.
He had been walking his dog near his New Farm home in inner Brisbane when panic set in.
Four people were rescued from the burning unit block in New Farm on Saturday morning.
He rushed, dropping his dog back inside, before running down Oxley Lane to where he had heard the loud bang.
Towards the end of the narrow street, a fire was raging through a unit at a brick apartment complex.
Four people, two men and two women, were on a balcony desperately trying to escape.
“Some guy grabbed me a stool and I went up...a lady passed a dog to me and I helped her down,” neighbour Iain recalls.
“And then another guy down, and then I stood up, and I couldn’t reach up because the two people were badly burned.
Police urged motorists to avoid the area if possible. Credit: Queensland Ambulance Service
“I couldn’t grip them, I couldn’t grab them because their skin came off in my hands.
“I just couldn’t get to them, but the fire was raging, so I ran around the front, smashed in the window.”
A thick cloud of smoke burst through the window, covering Iain.
“I was hosing it, just yelling at all the [other] residents to get out,” he says. “I got another guy to bang on all the doors to get them out because the fire was really hot.”
But Iain was unable to make it inside the apartment because of the severity of the fire, he says.
“The other two were on the balcony, and they were just – all over burns.”
“I made it onto the front balcony, but the back balcony I couldn’t get to because it was just too high and when the guy stood up, I just couldn’t grab him.”
Firefighters were soon on the scene, with Iain leading them to the balcony with a ladder to climb up.
“They went up and got the girl first, brought her down, and got the guy down, and then we just sat there and hosed them until the ambulances turned up.”
Investigators are working to determine the cause of the blaze. Credit: Queensland Ambulance Service
Paramedics assessed a man and woman who were in a critical condition with extensive burns, a Queensland Ambulance Service spokeswoman said.
They were rushed to the Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital soon after. The two who were rescued first, a man and a woman, declined hospitalisation.
Iain suffered smoke inhalation and was treated in hospital, before being released early Saturday afternoon.
“It was an intense fire,” he says, just hours after the ordeal.
His biggest fear at the time was trying to alert elderly and frail people to leave the building.
“There was one particular person that I was really frightened for because I didn’t see them. He’s a well-known local and I didn’t know where he was and then eventually I saw him and knew he was OK.”
Firefighters were able to extinguish the blaze by 9.45am, but police warned motorists on Saturday morning to avoid the area if possible.
The property is located a block back from New Farm’s busy Brunswick Street, and near to New Farm Cinemas.
On Saturday afternoon, authorities were yet to determine the cause of the blaze, but crews remained on scene for further investigation.