Turf blaze

By Jade Lawton
LUNCH was called off at Evergreen Turf yesterday after a fire destroyed the farm’s tea room.
A staff member taking a toilet break noticed smoke and alerted reception, who called 000 at 10.21am.
General manager David Stoopman said staff managed to save some tractors and heavy machinery parked next to the tea room before the CFA crews arrived.
“We had some guys keeping the fire under control with extinguishers while others drove the tractors out. If we lost those, the damage would have been in the hundreds of thousands,” he said.
The fire destroyed the staff tea room, a toilet and some spare parts stored near the area. Staff lockers, containing wallets, keys and phones were also lost.
Nine CFA units attended the fire and were able to save two offices next to the tea room.
The McGregor Road business relies on tank water, so some CFA units returned to Pakenham to ferry more water back to the scene.
Mr Stoopman estimated the damage to be around $60,000.
He thanked the firefighters for their efforts and was glad they could save the files and documents kept in the offices.
He said staff had been asking for a new tea room years.
“We were already in the process of getting a planning permit to build a new canteen, lunch room and offices,” he said.
Pakenham CFA Fourth Lieutenant and incident controller Daniel Ingram said it took the CFA crews about half an hour to contain the fire.
Mr Ingram said the source of the fire had not been determined, but was most likely to be electrical.
The 20 or so staff working at the time got back to work shortly after the CFA contained the fire.
Mr Stoopman said the company was organising to buy lunch for the workers before a debriefing session.
The only suspected casualty was the possum that lived in the tea room’s roof, which has not been seen since.