In this In the City story special, the fire’s unsung heroes, affected businesses and the city’s key players open up to JOSEPHINE HUYNH about their experiences, recovery process and forecast for the future.

Things at Coo are not very good at the moment but I’m positive that it’s getting better. The community has been very supportive, the Japanese society especially.

My chef, he was in shock, he was crying, he could not speak properly and did not remember what happened to have caused the fire.

Business is a little up and down at Iori [Aizawa’s second business just doors down from Coo] but we have received many lovely phone calls and emails from customers asking ‘Are you guys open?’, ‘Are you okay?’ and ‘Have you recovered from the fire?’

I want to thank everyone very much for all the kindness, generosity and support I have received during and after the fire. The loss has been enormous and we have to figure out how to recover from that but the Iori team is getting stronger, they try and make the best out of the situation and try to make our customers happy.

It was disbelief at first and then just shock. When we went to have a look for the first time we prepared ourselves to see the worst and when we got there it was 100 times worse than what we had in our minds.

It was absolute devastation, smoke damage everywhere, the ceiling had almost collapsed in and trophies and speakers had melted. We were instantly emotional – we hugged each other and cried for a while but then after that we went into a mission to find a new home and we haven’t looked back.

After the fire we have opened our new studio on City Walk. We could have just given up and closed our business but we decided that we wanted to make something really positive out of the situation and open our doors somewhere else to create new memories.

There is a lot of work that needs to go into our damaged studio. There is no time frame yet on when East Row will be re-built but for now we’ve got a place to call home again which is great.

There’s something special about our city. We have such a strong and supportive community, everyone from our students to other Latin dance schools in Canberra have really come together to back us up and I think that’s what has helped us get through this tough time.

We are very much indebted to everyone that has made it possible for us to continue and move forward, and so much respect goes out to the firefighters involved and the community that has been there the whole time. They have helped shaped a bad memory into a heartening one that will always be a part of who we are and it’s definitely made us stronger.

I was in my office and I heard about it through the radio, so straight away I headed out to the fire to command the general duty officers.

Approaching the site I saw a heap of smoke pouring out the front of the Sydney Building into the bus interchange. There were fire brigade units everywhere, they were fighting the fire through the glass windows at the front of Coo restaurant, and there were also firies out the back.

You could see the frustration on the shop keepers’ faces and my first instinct thought was ‘Is there anybody inside?’ but to my relief the place had been cleared.

It was amazing to see everybody unite and work together. We were working very closely with the fire brigade and the ACT government, as well as the shop keepers, to reach the one goal – and that was to take back control of the situation.

This building was the start of Canberra. The traders in the building change but it will always be the same – that is Civic. So when it’s jeopardised in any way the city rallies together.

You could see en route and tell from all the messages from the crews already at the scene that it was going to be a fairly involved and intense fire.

Rescue and safety is our first priority and once it was established that there was nobody in the building we concentrated on preventing fire from spreading.

All fires are different but the Sydney Building fire was more dissimilar because of the number of occupancies within one building and the fact that the site is long and narrow. Particularly for the boys that were working in the rear laneway, it was a challenging building to enter, there was a lot of heat pushing them back.

We had ambulance officers on scene who were accessing our guys with everything from blood pressure to pulse, because working in that environment can be very physically demanding.

Forty eight firies were sent out on my command, and like any of them you hope that your training has prepared you for any situation, and in this circumstance ACT firies were highly trained in containing the blaze.

When the fire was complete, the building was still in a dangerous state and was handed over to WorkSafe control to check for structural integrity issues, access and egress issues, water damage to sewerage and the electrical and gas systems in order for us to make sure there was a safe handover back to the businesses concerned.

We were able to get clearance for businesses to get back up and trading within a couple of days. Some of us stayed helping the business owners until 8pm because as you would imagine they were in a very confused and distraught state – our guys were there to answer all their questions.

Our inspectors were run off their feet that week but we made the decision to stay onsite because we could see we were adding value by providing direct responses. We got great feedback during the process and that only encourages us to keep with the strategy.

This was a very unusual situation because there were several businesses, approaching 30 all up involved and with multiple owners. It was very complex, businesses above other businesses, and so by us being onsite we were really able to facilitate them.

One thing that moved me from my experience of the fire was when I rang a business owner to tell him what he needed to do in order to re-open. He was pretty surprised to get a call from the WorkSafety commissioner and he really thanked me for that. That level of personal involvement really helped that person feel that we were on the case and taking their difficulties to heart, so that was very rewarding.

The Sydney Building is really one of those iconic structures, together with the Melbourne building, which are the heart of the commercial part of the city. For a century they’ve defined the character and activity of our hub.

The council seeks to retain those special qualities, conserve them in perpetuity in the context of change, development, decay and threatening processes like the fire and other natural calamities for future generations, as well as for the enjoyment of the present community – to bring that life back.

So when I heard the news I was shocked by it all. Any disaster that affects our heritage is heartbreaking. In the broader landscape of Canberra there are a reasonable number of heritage buildings, landscapes and places, but it is still a relatively small number and to have any of them damaged in any way is really disheartening because restoring them is a challenge, and hopefully that can successfully be undertaken in this case.

We have been having meetings, discussions and investigations to try and help to achieve its restoration.

We can help foster the conservation but the people with the primary responsibility for these heritage buildings are the owners of them, so what I hope is that they have perhaps gone to make sure that their heritage building is in a safe condition to avoid this happening again.

It’s great to see the rebuilding of the damaged Sydney Building progressing – for the sake of the businesses affected, I hope they will be open for trading again in the near future.

The ACT government has been providing support for the affected businesses through the BusinessPoint Program.

The Sydney and Melbourne Buildings are some of Canberra’s most treasured icons. At the heart of our CBD they continue to be a vibrant hub of retail and hospitality.

Their location, linking the east and west of our growing CBD, and the imminent construction of Capital Metro will mean these two buildings will continue to be central to the city’s economic development.

Exciting opportunities, like the Loading Zone cafe in Odgers lane, will continue to revitalise the buildings as the Canberra grows.

The Sydney Building’s history is quite interesting. There were butchers, bakers, people lived upstairs and kids played cricket in the laneway. I would have loved to have seen what life was like back then.

While this rebuild is happening it’s an opportunity to say ‘Well how can we improve the economics of the building?’ I think the Canberra community is ready for the implementation of buzzing laneways bringing more eat-street types of activities that give back the streetscape to the people.

Melbourne has Flinders Street Station, Sydney has the Town Hall – that’s their grand structure. We have the Sydney Building along with the Melbourne Building, standing in the city that we all love. We are here for the long term and so are these buildings that we have developed a very deep social connection with.

The iconic Sydney Building serves both the day time and the night time economy. And it’s really the only place that does. At night the building is heaving, Treehouse looks fantastic and all the clubs thrive, and during the day it’s also active – it never rests for the people.

The people who operate and own in the Sydney Building, they are holding in their hands our legacy, our future, and I really hope that those owners will take a similar attention to detail and pride as Mooseheads did when they rebuilt – the way they cared for the old girl, it was great.