Hornsby 1971

T'was the 5th of January, 1971. My family had just moved back to our home in Normanhurst four days prior, having lived overseas the previous two years. Hornsby was our local commercial centre.

Let the news tell it: "At 4:50pm a Golden Fleece petrol tanker loaded with 25,000 litres was travelling towards Hornsby (on the main highway north out of Sydney). As the tanker turned right at the intersection, it rolled, rupturing its tank into the open door of the Hornsby Fire Station. 

Flaming fuel quickly spread to the Fire Station and flowed along the gutter north towards the railway line, and south to the Ampol Service Station next door."

We're thinking this was taken between the time the emergency services arrived, given it was the fire station on fire.

"Residents leapt into action to help firemen battle the huge blaze. When the fire was extinguished only a skeleton of the Fire Station remained. Seventeen other buildings were damaged, but miraculously nobody was hurt."

So they built a new fire station across town, and made the bend even sharper,.. and built a Keith Lord furniture store on the former site; the building now a self-storage centre still in all its 1972 architectural glory.

I bet few residents of the generic flats that now saturate the Pac Hwy are aware of its dramatic history.

FYI, the math after.