MELBOURNE, Australia — The day started with Fred Harrison welcoming local residents into a new Ritchies IGA store. It ended with Harrison preventing hundreds of those same people from leaving the market. For their own protection.
It was Feb. 7, 2009 — known in southeastern Australia as Black Saturday because of the massive brush fires that broke out that day. Harrison, chief executive officer of the 58-unit Ritchies IGA chain, was at the opening of the company' newest store — a 27,000-square-foot unit in Yarri Glen, located in a rural area about an hour away from Melbourne.
The store was opening amidst a great deal of hoopla, Harrison told SN, with food and wine tastings; a variety of family-oriented games for the locals; and a two-minute shopping spree given away every hour.
Around 2 p.m., four hours into the festivities, Harrison and others saw smoke, he recalled, “but we were told it was about 62 kilometers [approximately 40 miles] away and posed no danger.”
It was a very windy day, however, and a very hot one — roughly 112 degrees F., he noted. By 4 p.m. the fire was getting closer, Harrison said, and by 6 p.m. the town was surrounded by fire.
That's when the new store went from hosting a celebration to becoming an emergency shelter, and Harrison was deputized as a fire warden to help ensure the safety of the local people in the area.
“The local police and fire brigade declared our store the region's safety house because it was built into a hill, made of concrete and brick and not surrounded by trees,” he explained.
“I was put in charge of the facility — allowing people in but not letting them out again,” he said. “Because the area was surrounded by blazing fires, no one was allowed to leave the store — though some people tried because they wanted to go home to find their families. But I couldn't let them leave.
“I did have to stop some people, and I did have to yell a bit, but I'm 6-feet, 4-inches tall and quite big, so I was able to stand in the doorway and convince people to stay inside. And when I said ‘no,’ people generally accepted it.”
Asked how he felt at the time, Harrison replied, “I know people were in shock, but I was able to make decisions for them because they would be endangering their own lives if they left and they weren't going to be allowed back inside.
“There was one guy who came up to me and asked if I was in charge. He said he wanted to do something and was told I was the one in charge. I told him there was nothing he could do but to just relax, but he told me he had left his wife at home — she was dead from the fire — and he needed some kind of activity to do.”
Looking back on the whole experience, Harrison told SN, “I was surprised at the whole thing, and I find it difficult to look back on. For three or four months afterward, I thought about getting some counseling, and in hindsight I probably should have, because it really affected me.”
Ultimately, about 800 people were camped out in the store, he said. They were told to sit anywhere they could find space, “and you ended up having to tiptoe through the aisles between all the people that were there,” Harrison said.
The store's tea room — the employee break room — was converted into a temporary hospital to treat people with burns and flesh wounds, he added.
For the 11 hours until people were permitted to leave, Ritchies IGA instructed the stranded locals to just help themselves from the shelves — “and our people were making deli sandwiches and fresh cakes to feed the people, including the police and firefighters,” Harrison noted.
Because it was the grand opening weekend, the store was well stocked, he added.
He estimated it cost Ritchies IGA approximately $40,000 to $50,000 worth of product the first day and about $100,000 over the two days of the fire.
The Yarri Glen store did not reopen for business until late Sunday, about 24 hours after it had been shut down.
During the first year it was open the store averaged weekly sales of about $350,000 (U.S.), “and sales have been growing at a rate of 10% over last year,” Harrison told SN. “The community is very pleased with what we did.”
