Refuge under the big top

THE circus was in town, but the people had other things on their minds.
The emergency relief centre at Warragul was at full capacity as circus staff about 50 metres away were setting up for the next show.
Manager Jan Lennon knew she would have to cancel the weekend schedule as the bushfire inferno worsened by the minute.
Instead of the show, Jane offered the big top as a temporary shelter for people.
She also offered free tickets to the crowd for Sunday’s 11am sessions. Seventy people turned up.
But it was the animals that needed shelter.
Not the five lions at the circus, but the pets from all around the fire-ravaged district who had accompanied their owners to the Warragul leisure centre, the emergency assembly site.
Ian and Lisa McColl, of Nar Nar Goon, also had decided they wanted to help pet owners with nowhere to go after the fires.
So they went to Warragul to offer food and shelter at their Nar Nar Goon home.
When they arrived at Warragul they found no pets, just mountains of pet food and cat litter.
“There was enough to last about two months,” Ian said.
The animals had all gone to the circus down the road.
Staff had turned the lion tunnel into a series of cat runs and reconfigured the lions’ safety enclosure to create cages in the ring for the dogs and cats, and for a cockatoo called Charlie.
Ian and Lisa had no homeless pets to bring back to Nar Nar Goon, but they knew the animals were well taken care of overnight.
The last pets left the circus about noon on Monday as Jan and the staff went back to the routine tasks of setting up the big top for the next show.