This is part of an interview Series for the National Film and Sound Archive Aural History Programme by John Fife.
My name is John Fife (JF) and I have with me Morrie Pilens (MP).
JF: I think you shot the bodies down at Lara?
MP: Yes, that got on air.
JF: Tell me that story.
MP: Oh, my day off, I’m just quite happy sitting at home and a news editor rang up and said ‘Morrie, there’s a fire down near Geelong. Go and have a look at it – we haven’t got anybody else.’
I said ‘Yeah, okay.’ So I hop into my little Carmen Ghia and off I go along Geelong Rd. And I can see this great big bloody pile of smoke coming from the right hand side and I thought wait a minute, I’m not going through that. I’m going to pull over because there’s a culvert along there, sort of wet patch with guttering underneath. So I pulled the Carmen Ghia right off the road next to the culvert and said yeah, fine I’ll stay here, see what happens.
A couple of cars whizzed past me, right into the bloody dark. I said ‘Oh, stupid twits.’ Anyway, waiting for a while. And all this black big thing moving past, went across, disappeared and I said okay, I can drive now.
JF: So you’ve seen people go by?
MP: Yeah. So I drive up, the fire went across another five hundred metres from me – so they drove into it, into the smoke before the fire reached them. So I drive another half a km further up and there’s bodies all over the place. What they had done, they had jumped out of the cars and tried to run from the fire. Running to the left hand side of the gutter, and this is Lara. They just dead. Most of them killed from lack of oxygen. Because the rest of them was just singed, they weren’t deeply fried like in a fire. They were just dead and bloated. Six people. So I took a couple of shots of that – that got on air.
So I went further up into Lara itself and there’s a church burning, and a burning cat running from underneath the church. There’s a bloke with a rag beating it out or what have you, and I’m filming. And all of a sudden he says ‘Hey mate, your car’s gonna be in the fire.’ And across the road where I parked the Carmen Ghia the fire’s starting to burn underneath the back.
So I run up to the car, put the key in the ignition, turn the key, it started, and I drove off. I’m driving and I’m looking and there’s half a key in my hand! I’d broken the bloody ignition key in the hurry. Fortunate it started – but still, things like that happen. You’re observing, you’re recording.
My problem is, doesn’t matter – blood, guts, whatever. As long as there’s no smell, no problem. As soon as there is smell, I’m out.