FOR Alan and Adele Coleman, the tragedy of losing almost everything when Yarloop was devastated by fire in January hit them hard, as it did for their neighbours.
But now, the pain has been replaced by hope, and the big, relieved smile that sneaks out through Mr Coleman’s beard belies any of the hardships they’ve faced over the past two months.
“It’s been hard, but I’m really happy now,” Mr Coleman says as he handles the keys to his new home, a sign of renewal that he’s obviously really glad about.
“You know, it’s tough, and it gets you down. But then something like this happens and you feel like you can get up and keep going.”
The Colemans lived on Eastcott Street in the middle of Yarloop, and the fire – which by many accounts took minutes to wipe out the majority of their town – almost claimed them with it.
“We had walked out the front of thee house, and our neighbour was there,” Mr Coleman remembered of the events in January.
“We looked down the end of the road and we could see the smoke rising. I said, ‘there’s a fire there’, and [our neighbour] said, ‘don’t worry about that fire, worry about this one’.
The next minute, a police car went past, a little fire truck went past, and then a big fire truck. He said, ‘You’ve gotta go now, just run’. So we did, and next minute, it was all gone.”
Like many Yarloop residents, the Colemans feel they had little warning before the “wall of fire” raged through Yarloop, destroying more than 160 properties.
“We didn’t get any warning until they came right to our house and told us to run,” Ms Coleman said.
“We knew that there were warnings for Waroona and Harvey, but we hadn’t heard any warnings for us. Yarloop is kind of in-between Waroona and Harvey, and I don’t know, it’s like we were forgotten.”
The Colemans managed to escape, but not with many of their possessions. Documents and family photo albums were lost, and the couple have had to spend the time since piecing their lives back together.
“It’s like we’ve been in Limbo, because we lost everything,” Ms Coleman said.
“Our personal things, just everything. So we’ve just been living out of the caravan in front of his brother’s place for a little while, and then we went down to Bunbury for a bit, and then to Woodland point. So we’ve been all over the place.
“One of the hardest parts is that everyone wants to help, everyone wants to give you things.
“But you’ve got no place to put any of it. It’s hard to have nothing, but it’s even harder to turn things away because you really just can’t put them anywhere.”
“We’ve just been hopping from one place to another,” Mr Coleman said.
“But we’re happy now, because we’ve got a place to stay. We’ve got a place to start again from.”
Things began falling into place for the Colemans in February, when their insurance payout started.
Mr Coleman said while the financial support was a big help, it still took some time for them to find their feet and begin finding a new home.
We were a bit lost, just living out of the caravan and trying to work out what to do.
- Mr Coleman.
“We were a bit lost, just living out of the caravan and trying to work out what to do,” he said.
“I was just walking down the street one day a few weeks back and saw the houses out the front of Kevin Greene. I just decided then. I said, ‘that’s it’, made my mind up and just walked in.”
From there, it was a quick process to getting the keys to their new home. The agents at Kevin Greene made the process as easy as possible, Mr Coleman said.
“They were fantastic, just amazing,” he said.
“They made it all simple for us. It could’ve been hard, you know, because we were just still kinda stuck, but we looked at a few places and when I saw this one, I said to myself and Adele, ‘this is it’."
It was difficult for Mr Coleman, who has lived in “the bush” for about 20 years, to make the move back to the suburbs. But the advantage of being close to his family helps.
“We’ve got three sons, one who’s in a wheelchair, so it’s really good to be close to them,” he said.
“We’re getting older as well, so having family around is important.”
As for the future, the keys are just the start.
“It’s still going to be hard,” Ms Coleman said, “But we’ve got somewhere to start from now at least. We can have a life again, which is the most important thing.”
