Completely refurbished Gnowangerup IGA set to reopen nine months after major blaze spread to the roof space

The Gnowangerup IGA store, which closed in March after a serious fire, is set to reopen on Monday, in time for those last-minute Christmas necessities.

The town’s only supermarket suffered a significant blaze which was sparked in an electrical box and spread into the roof space on March 26.

Store manager Tina Nymann did her best to stop her store from burning down, emptying the contents of two extinguishers onto the metre box but then had to run as she couldn’t breathe.

She said firefighters told her later that had she not tackled the meter box, the store would have been lost completely.

The shop has been unusable for the last nine months as repairs have been carried out.

Ms Nyman said she was going to enjoy managing the new store.

“It’s been such a busy time, and it has been hard work, but I am really looking forward to working in a nice, new store,” she said.

“I suspect the whole town will be in there on Monday.”

Immediately following the blaze, the Shire of Gnowangerup set up a bus service to take residents the 60km to the nearest store in Katanning, hosted a community barbecue and set up a temporary shop at the rear of the the town’s Community Resource Centre.

While the set-up was better than nothing, it meant Ms Nymann and her five staff were left with limited shelf and freezer space and had to keep running to back areas where bulky items were stored.

However, the community was grateful there was a store at all and customers who called in during October’s Wild Gravel event said they appreciated Ms Nymann’s efforts in providing a service.

Gary Bungey said every town needed a shop.

“Every town needs an outlet, and a lot of people have done a lot of work to keep this one going,” he said.

“Hats off to everyone who got it up and running.”

Gerda Nicholas said the temporary store had served the town well.

“I think the town has supported it really well — it has been a great place to pick up daily necessities and to have a chat,” she said.