Luke Bailey remembers the first time he died. He had woken from one of a number of operations he has had in treatment for spina bifida, to learn from his mother at his bedside that the surgeons had spent that last two hours trying to bring him back.
A few years later, in 2015, he faced death again when a basketball injury caused him to develop gangrene in his groin. His condition became so dire, he says, that he came within days of the grave.
But, despite his harrowing experience, he said he has never been so scared as the moment that he saw the light of the inferno that engulfed the Wickham Wool Store in northern NSW this week flickering in the glass above his front door.
Bailey, who uses a wheelchair to help with mobility, lives in Newcastle across the road from the former Wool Store and, when he heard the sirens on Tuesday, he initially thought that was another false alarm.
He has lived in the neighbourhood for two years after moving to the Newcastle region to pursue his dreams of para-athletic racing, and said in that time he had seen firefighters respond to a number of false alarms at the now gutted structure.
"It was very scary," he said, "And obviously being in a wheelchair, by myself, I didn't know what to do - what to think - seeing the flames so close to the fuel depot."
Bailey said the fire seemed to have sparked in the back of the building toward the upper floors and had quickly spread toward the street, pushing smoke through his home and the clothes he had packed for an upcoming trip to Dubai in the next few weeks. He is headed overseas to compete with ambitions to secure a spot in the Australian Commonwealth Games para-racing team.
"I've had some scary encounters," he said, "but seeing that, I think it changed the way I think about what I should be doing in my life. I should be thinking more in front. It was definitely scary seeing my street, in about five minutes, full of fire trucks and police and everything."
More than 100 firefighters battled the monstrous 10th-alarm inferno that could be seen burning from across the harbour on March 1. The blaze sent massive plumes of smoke into the skies over the suburb and the heat could be felt from streets back.
At one point, Bailey described the scene as feeling like being in a sauna.
The smell of ash and smoke remained, blanketed over the suburbs Saturday, as demolition works on the eviscerated building got underway.
Merewether firefighters have been working alongside demolition crews, providing both dust and fire suppression to control smouldering hot spots within the rubble, Fire and Rescue NSW said in a statement at the weekend.
Works have begun dismantling the remaining shell of structure closest to the adjacent fuel terminal, and utilities including gas and electricity have been isolated, a spokesperson for the fire service said. Ground vibration monitoring is in place for the nearby Sydney-Newcastle high-pressure fuel pipeline.
The inferno was the most significant emergency incident in Newcastle since the earthquake of 1989, Fire and Rescue NSW declared.
