It was 10 years ago that a fire broke out in Harvey Norman in the Museum’s neighbouring suburb of Jamisontown. The Fire and Rescue NSW Sydney Communication Centre received an Automatic Fire Alarm to the Harvey Norman retail centre, Jamisontown, at 3:41p.m. on Friday 24th February, 2012. The centre contained warehouses, offices, retail areas and showrooms, and stood at about 16,300m2 in size. Initially, Pumper 102 Regentville and Aerial Pumper 86 Penrith were assigned to the call, but as more...

This week we’re winding the clock back 100 years to the great wool store fire at Kirribilli Point, 1921. Wool stores were extremely vulnerable due to the bales of wool they housed as well as wooden floors that were saturated in lanolin. They were so flammable that the Goldsborough Mort wool store fire of 1935 was suspected to have been started by a single cigarette butt. The Pastoral Financial Association wool store sat at Kirribilli Point, nearly opposite Circular Quay, and was recognisable...

Here at the Museum, we focus on local firefighting history, but did you know that floods are the most expensive type of natural disaster we face? The costliest summer for floods in Australia was 2010-11 across Lockyer Valley, Ipswich and Brisbane which cost 7.45 billion dollars! This week, we’re looking at the town of Narrabri, which due to its geography, is no stranger to a flood or two. Narrabri is located in the Northwest Slopes of New South Wales on Kamilaroi country, about 521km...