Family lose home, jobs after Selwyn fire
One woman has lost her home and her job in the blaze that ripped through rural land south of Christchurch overnight on Thursday.
Bev Throsby lived in a house in front of Marshall's Eggs, a chicken farm on Selwyn Rd.
Both the farm where she worked and her house were gutted by flames, whipped up by nor-west winds in the dry summer conditions.
She and her daughter Amy, 20, waited anxiously at the edge of a police cordon to find out the fate of their home.
On Friday they picked through the ashes to try and salvage what they could from its charred shell.
Miss Throsby said: "From the outside I guess from some angles it would look like it's fine, but once you go around the other side you see it's all burnt out and it's all gutted inside."
"We're just trying to empty out whatever we can from the house."
She said the only thing she had managed to collect were a few items of clothing, nothing of real importance.
"It just smells like burning everything," she said.
With the chicken farm destroyed, Mrs Throsby will soon be unemployed.
Miss Throsby said: "Mum's been told she only has two more weeks of work and she has to find somewhere else."
"She's doing the best she can. I guess she's trying to stay strong for the rest of us."
To make matters worse, the family has no insurance.
"We haven't been able to get insurance since the earthquakes," said Miss Throsby.
She said she wished some of her family's furniture could have been saved to help them start a new home.
"I don't know how we'll do it."
For now Miss Throsby, her mum, and younger sister Maria, 18, are staying with friends in Avonhead.
"People have been really generous, it's a bit overwhelming," she said.
