At around midnight last night, a fire started which engulfed the old Mullumbimby railway station. It’s been twenty years since the last train came through, but the building has been an important community hub, providing office space for a number of organisations, including COREM, Mullum Music Festival and Social Futures.
Shane Rennie of Island Quarry and Flickerfest is a long term tenant of the station who is devastated by the news. He told the Echo he saw the fire start on his security cameras and notified the fire brigade immediately, but the building was well alight by the time the fire brigade arrived ten minutes later.
Police Inspector Matt Kehoe has confirmed that the station building has been severely damaged, saying the walls of the building look externally okay, but the internal structure and roof have been totally destroyed.
He said the cause ‘appears to be an electrical fault, not considered suspicious.’
Police are still on scene processing the site this morning.
Mr Rennie said many important archives had been lost relating to Island Quarry, while he hoped digital backups would have preserved most of the Flickerfest material.
As well as the immediate loss to tenants, Mr Rennie said the loss to the community would hit hard, with the station building having been ‘brought back from the brink’ ten years ago. ‘It’s a damned tragedy,’ he said.
Very sad and you’d think if the train was running this would not have happened with more people around and a station master on site
The fire started around midnight and the fire brigade was called quickly. Businesses were being run from the station.
One, or even a few trains per day would not have made any difference.
Never lose an opportunity but!
Threatened by the fact a trai. May run by your house one day lol and that’s right never miss a opportunity lol 😂 even though this a serious matter and a loss of a good asset
If only the place wasn’t disused and empty 95% of the time and other community groups in need could share the space this wouldn’t have happened. Why is a for profit company occupying public land when there is such a scarcity of space for essential non profits to use.
The station was occupied. The fire started in the middle of the night. A community group would not have had anyone there at the time either so your claim that it wouldn’t have happened if they had been using it is complete nonsense.
Profit companies pay for their leases on the public property.