A FAMILY of seven is without a home after a fire gutted their two-storey weatherboard house in Terang yesterday.
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Owners Jason and Cindy Sharp and their five children, aged from 13 months to 11 years old, were out of the house when the fire broke out about 9am.
It burnt fiercely through their Swanston Street home in the north of the town.
Mr Sharp, who has a carpet cleaning business, had left to do a job and his wife was at a local school reading to pupils at the time of the fire.
Mr Sharp said the family had lost virtually all of its possessions. He was able to retrieve only a few photographs, he said.
Witness Rosemary Roache said the house was completely engulfed by flames that were flared out of the top-storey windows.
The fire was so intense it melted the tail lights of a car parked in the yard.
"I was astounded at how ferocious it was burning," Mrs Roache said.
Mr Sharp said they were very upset about the loss of their home but were heartened by the support they had already received from the Terang community, receiving numerous offers of alternative accommodation and clothes.
He said the loss of the house was overwhelming and he had not yet decided yesterday afternoon where his family would spend the night.
Mr Sharp said there had been a smell of plastic burning in the house on Sunday night and yesterday morning but his investigations had found nothing.
A computer in the lounge room had not been operating correctly and he suspected the fire might have started there.
"Thank God it did not happen in the early hours of the morning," Mr Sharp said.
"The fire just went whump. It burnt in no time," he said.
Mrs Sharp thanked the emergency services and the Terang community for their support.
She said she was home most days with her 13-month-old baby and was thankful no one had been hurt.
Mrs Sharp said she had heard the fire sirens as she was leaving the school after reading to pupils and "a gut feeling" had told her to rush home.
The Sharps had lived in the house, which was insured, for the past four years.
Terang police said four CFA units attended the blaze that was brought under control in about half an hour.
A hydraulic platform from a power company was used to lift firefighters to extinguish the fire in the first floor .
Sergeant Tanya Barbary of Terang police said the house was "trashed" by the fire.
"There is nothing left," Sergeant Barbary said.
Senior Constable Tanya Cook of Terang police said both the Colac Crime Investigation Unit and the CFA had investigated the cause of the fire and it was not believed to be suspicious.
