Living in Auburn, my morning commute is usually anything but exciting. Walk around the corner, hop on a bus, travel a few minutes, get off and then jump on a train. Sometimes you see a minor car accident, sometimes the bus driver is a nutter.

Today was a little different.

As soon as the bus turned onto Auburn Road, it pulled over. After a few minutes it slowly made the rest of the trek to the bus stop where there were two buses already stopped ahead. As soon as the doors opened, you could smell the smoke from a recently extinguished fire.

I guess that explains the sirens I heard while having my coffee this morning.

The road was completely closed and the fire brigade was still there.

There hasn’t been a lot on the news, but from what I can gather, an oil cooker fire started around 7am in one of the restaurants just around the corner from the station, and several building have some quite severe smoke and heat damage (including the Commonwealth Bank you see in the above shot).

I’m loathe to link to Channel 9, but they seem to have the “best”, or maybe I should say “most”, coverage of it (of course they do) : http://www.news.com.au/national/nsw-act/news/fire-engulfs-shopping-strip-in-auburn-western-sydney/news-story/7bf0854f28f21bfcfde41da72afa1ff7

Apparently the restaurant only changed hands a few months ago, so I feel bad for the poor sod. Luckily no one was hurt, which is a small miracle considering there is a private premise on the first floor of the building. One of the other store owners/occupants came to the rescue and woke them up to get them out of there.

Another lucky factor is it would have taken the Fire Brigade literally less than 30 seconds to get there.

Luckily the fire brigade was really close by.

I guess I might go have a sticky beak on the way home to see what else was damaged. It’s a great little cafe strip along that part of the road, always busy, and I hope it doesn’t impact too many businesses.