A young family is reeling after their car was torched in the driveway of their new home at Weston, only a few metres from gas bottles supplying the house.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Authorities are treating fire, which destroyed the Mitsubishi Outlander four-wheel-drive, as deliberately lit.
Elise Smith said she had been out of bed to feed her seven-month-old daughter at about midnight on Thursday when she heard what sounded like an intruder trying to force their way into the house.
Ms Smith woke her husband and asked him to take a look.
But he soon came running back down the hallway, phone in hand, telling a Triple Zero operator that the family car was on fire in their driveway.
She couldn’t believe what she had heard, so she ran to the front of the house to look for herself.
“I could just see orange,” she said. “I grabbed the baby, ran out the back door and across the road while glass rained down on us from windows exploding.
“We just stood there, watching it burn. We watched for 10 minutes while our family car burned and exploded in the driveway, causing damage to my husband’s car and the garage.
“There is nothing left [of the car]. It’s completely destroyed.”
Ms Smith said it was lucky that the fire didn’t catch nearby gas bottles and burn the house down.
“How the house or LPG tanks didn’t ignite, we are considering miraculous,” she said.
The young family had not long finished building the house at Forest Gum Estate, and had moved the last of their belongings into their new home two days before the incident occurred.
Though they didn’t know any of the nearby residents when the fire took place, Ms Smith said many neighbours had since dropped by and offered their support.
They told her that there had been other recent incidents in the area involving prowlers.
“We’re all on alert now,” she said.
“It has left us totally devastated, we worked so hard for all of this and one act of idiocy could very nearly have killed us.
“Probably, the thing that saved us was the baby waking up.
“I’m thankful every night since that my daughter doesn’t sleep through – I’d hate to think what could have been.”
Ms Smith wanted to thank the neighbours who collected enough money to cover the family’s insurance premium, which she said they wouldn’t have been able to afford otherwise.
“If not for the generosity of our incredible community in this estate, we would not be able to get back on our feet,” she said.
Nick Bielby
Nick Bielby is a crime reporter who has worked as a journalist since 2011. Having joined the Newcastle Herald in 2017, he won a Walkley Award in 2019 with Donna Page for their investigation 'Dirty Deeds', which exposed the decades of illegal dumping of toxic material in and around a Hunter waterway.
Nick Bielby is a crime reporter who has worked as a journalist since 2011. Having joined the Newcastle Herald in 2017, he won a Walkley Award in 2019 with Donna Page for their investigation 'Dirty Deeds', which exposed the decades of illegal dumping of toxic material in and around a Hunter waterway.
