A central highlands farming family has been left with nothing after their historic homestead was destroyed by fire last week.
Ellen Triffett lost her home at Half Moon Marsh near Bronte Park when a suspected electrical fault sparked a blaze that gutted the entire structure.
Triffett was not home when the fire started but shopping in New Norfolk.
Ellen’s son Harry discovered smoke billowing from the house while feeding sheep on the property.
He desperately tried dragging part of the building, made up of two former hydro properties, away before calling emergency services.
“Unfortunately there was little that could be done,” Great Lake Fire Brigade chief Colin Triffitt told the Tasmanian Country.
“It was well alight when we arrived and really our role was to extinguish the remaining flames and cool down the site so that the cause of the fire could be investigated.”
15 volunteer firefighters from five brigades battled the remote fire, taking some 45 minutes to reach the scene.
By then, the weatherboard home was fully engulfed.
The uninsured property housed 10 bedrooms and contained a lifetime of memories.
Family photos, mounted deer heads collected over generations, jewellery and thousands of dollars in cash were all lost.
“I only had the clothes I was wearing,” Triffett told the Tasmanian Country.
“I was lucky to find a brooch my son gave me in a medicine chest that survived the fire.”
The grandmother had lived in the house her entire life, raising four children on the working cattle property.
She remains determined to stay on the land despite the devastation.
“There’s an old, abandoned house on the property,” she said. “[My son] John is a builder so my aim will be to rebuild.”
The local community has rallied around the family, with a GoFundMe page established to help replace essentials.
The fundraiser describes Triffett as someone “always there to help others when needed”.
An electrical fault near a freezer is suspected to have been the cause of the blaze.
