Ten-year-old Jake lost his home and school in Australia's recent bushfires as well as precious keepsakes he had from his father who died when Jake was only a baby.
Sticking out from warped sections of corrugated iron and powdery shards of plasterboard is the burnt frame of what was once a child’s bed.“It wasn’t very big but we were downsizing from when we were in town.
It was just cute ... like Little House on the Prairie, we just loved it,” she tells SBS News. She and partner Jim Keat built their weatherboard cottage in the rural hamlet of Clifton Creek, 20 minutes drive north of the main township of Bairnsdale in East Gippsland.They lived off the grid using solar power and tank water with their idyllic hideaway on an acreage overlooking the valley next door to the local primary school But on the night of 30 December 2019, it would all be snatched away as fires tore through the hamlet. Jim stayed to defend the house with his brother and friend, but by nightfall he realised it couldn’t be saved."I was keeping an eye on the road to make sure we could get out, but the last time I went up it was on fire and the school was almost on fire.Bree Brunswick and Jim Keat say they're lucky to be alive.Bree, Jim, 15-year old Ashley, 10-year old Jake and three-year-old Joey lost everything, just five days after Christmas. “All their Christmas presents, everything they were excited about was taken away overnight and they struggled.” For Jake, the loss was significant as the fires not only took his home but also the keepsakes he had from his father, who died when he was seven months old. “I had my dad’s old motorbike gear and that’s gone, some pictures of my dad and they’re gone, heaps of stuff, yeah,” he says. Jim says for him, he will find himself going to get something before realising it’s gone. “Every day you just realise there was something else in there, that now you haven’t got, it’s kind of bizarre,” he says. The fire that claimed the family's home also took the school Jake attended, Clifton Creek Primary.“For a little boy, you’ve got your family and you’ve got your school, and that’s your world. He’d lost it all in an instant. So he struggled the most, he loved being up there. He was devastated.”Clifton Creek Primary was more than 100 years old and branded itself 'The little school that makes a big difference'.Ms Paul has only just returned to the school site to see the damage and says it is all too familiar for her. “I couldn’t come back, it was too emotional. We lost a family member and a family home in the [2009] Black Saturday bushfires, so for me, seeing all of this is quite devastating and brings back a lot of that.”Just three days after the school was destroyed, the Victorian government announced it would be rebuilt. Member for Gippsland Darren Chester said while the school only accommodates a small number of students, it is an important part of the rural township. “It’s the hub of that little community, Clifton Creek is only a small community but they want that school rebuilt so they can get that sense of community back as soon as they can.”
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