In the early evening of 15 August 1988 the Cairns Memorial Church caught fire. Professional photographer and resident of East Melbourne, Rod Goodwin was returning home from an assignment in the city when the fire was beginning to engulf this historic church. With his most suitable professional equipment at hand, Rod captured this dramatic and detailed record of the progress of the fire.
Rod provided the following additional notes on 23 October 2018:
The fire began in daylight with the first sign being smoke coming from rooms beneath the building. As darkness fell the fire took hold in the main part of the building and dramatically backlit the stained glass windows. Stained glass is held in a matrix of lead - leadlight windows - and when the
temperature of the fire reached the melting point of lead and the matrix
dissolved, the stained glass glass panels seemed to flow downwards like
coloured water. Very beautiful, and sad.
The fire brigade was not very prompt in arriving and setting up to fight the
fire. It was well alight as daylight faded.
My photography was unfortunately constrained by having the wrong camera equipment available. It should have been extensively covered as a news event with dozens of photographs being taken in 35mm, but I was using a 'view' camera with large 5x4 inch transparencies held in 'double-darks', and limited to the half-dozen sheets of film left after my afternoon assignment.