Fire damages centre

By Kath Gannaway
A FIRE last week caused $500,000 damage to the visitor centre at Lake Mountain Alpine Resort.
The fire, which started at around 4.45pm on Wednesday after most of the staff had left the mountain, is believed to have started from an electrical fault in one of the boot driers.
Equipment including toboggans, boots, skis and poles, along with the computer and eftpos systems and building infrastructure were lost in the fire.
The visitor centre suffered severe smoke damage but by Friday was operating again.
Resort spokesperson Trudi Ackerman said the fire was discovered by two night workers who noticed smoke coming from one of the buildings and alerted management who were on their way back into Marysville.
Ms Ackerman said if it had not been for the quick response from Marysville CFA the resort may well have lost the only surviving building of the Black Saturday fires.
“The quick response from Lake Mountain staff and the CFA ensured the fire was contained within 15 minutes and damage was kept to a minimum,” Ms Ackerman said.
She said with many of the resident CFA volunteers now not living in the town it was a stroke of good luck – among the bad luck – that two relieving CFA volunteers were at the fire station on the day. The fire has come at a particularly bad time with good snow drawing school holiday visitors.
“Staff and management at Lake Mountain have worked tirelessly since February to get the resort operational for snow season 2009 and for this to happen is just disastrous,” she added.
On Thursday Ms Ackerman told the Mail the positive attitude that saw the resort open after the Black Saturday bushfires, would ensure that the visitor centre was up and running as soon as possible.
On Friday, she had more good news. The bistro had re-opened and internet and power had been restored. They were working on getting their ski-hire and equipment back on the mountain as soon as possible and in the meantime Ms Ackerman said there were hire facilities in Marysville and at Narbethong. A fleet of new snowmobiles was undamaged. “What we want people to know is that there is great snow here and that’s what everyone comes for,” Ms Ackerman said.
“Even the day after the fire we had heaps of people out on the toboggan runs having a great time, despite the somewhat bizarre backdrop of the latest fire.
“It’s really all about the snow.”