By CASEY NEILL
A member of staff who saved a vital piece or equipment from being destroyed as a factory fire burned around him has been hailed a hero.
Twelve staff were inside a Dandenong South factory when it went up in flames last Tuesday night.
“One of the guys – I don’t know if we call him the company hero or the village idiot – he actually rescued the one piece of equipment that we can’t do without,” Image Line Marking operations manager Jamie Moxham said.
“Without that the company would have stopped for eight weeks.”
Mr Moxham said the staff member called Brock was courageous and all workers escaped uninjured.
“But I think it’s one of those things that if you succeed you’re a hero, and if you don’t you’re a fool,” he said.
CFA crews received the call to the fire in Amberley Crescent about 10pm on 12 November.
“During the cleaning duties a small amount of thinners caught on fire,” Mr Moxham said.
“The guys tried to put it out with the fire extinguishers.
“By the time they’ve realised they couldn’t put it out, there was only time to evacuate and get one vehicle out before all the stock went up in flames.
“It looks like the building will be condemned.
“We have a very small premises up the road that we use for storage. We’re trying to squeeze as much as we can in there.
“It’s going to be very challenging to say the least.”
The company had purchased a new building on Kitchen Road and is negotiating settlement down from 90 days to a week and a half.
“We were looking at moving in January,” Mr Moxham said.
Image completes line marking on large construction projects like EastLink and for 13 councils.
Mr Moxham said its 20 employees were nervous after the blaze.
“We had employees ringing up in tears wondering what’s going on with their jobs,” he said.
He hoped they’d be back to almost full strength by the end of the month.
