{"id":8498,"date":"2026-05-10T09:51:23","date_gmt":"2026-05-10T09:51:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/8498\/"},"modified":"2026-05-10T09:51:23","modified_gmt":"2026-05-10T09:51:23","slug":"home-destroyed-by-fire-rebuilt-as-an-earthship-made-of-tyres-bottles-and-cans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/8498\/","title":{"rendered":"Home destroyed by fire rebuilt as an Earthship made of tyres, bottles and cans"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dee-Ann Kelly fled her home with a handful of possessions and her pets when a bushfire threatened the Grampians town of Pomonal two years ago.<\/p>\n

A dry lightning strike had started a fire that tore through the western Victorian town, eventually destroying 45 homes<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Ms Kelly said it came through hard and fast, and it was a miracle no lives were lost.<\/p>\n

\"Dee-Ann<\/p>\n

Dee-Ann Kelly lost her home in the 2024 Pomonal fires. (ABC News: Eden Hynninen)<\/p>\n

“My strong community was the thing that helped get us through,” Ms Kelly said.<\/p>\n

Now, that community is helping her rebuild.<\/p>\n

Working under the leadership of a registered builder, 35 people from far and wide are helping construct her new home from earth-packed tyres, bottles and cans.<\/p>\n

It’s what is known as an Earthship.<\/p>\n

\"a<\/p>\n

Worker Violette Ogden building the Earthship’s walls with cob.\u00a0 (ABC News: Eden Hynninen)<\/p>\n

“Earthship builds bring about community \u2026 people who come with a lot of passion and enthusiasm,” Ms Kelly said.<\/p>\n

“I can say the first day was completely amazing; everyone was so excited, everybody had the opportunity to say why they are here.<\/p>\n

“We see it as a way of moving forward, creating sustainable communities.”Built to survive<\/p>\n

Martin Freney has designed and built a dozen Earthship homes.<\/p>\n

He said they’re not only eco-friendly, but built to survive the elements.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Martin Freney has built and designed a dozen Earthships in Australia. (ABC News: Eden Hynninen)<\/p>\n

“Earthships are highly bushfire-resilient buildings because of the way they’re constructed with a lot of earth surrounding them,” Mr Freney said.<\/p>\n

“That is an ideal sort of barrier to stopping fire burning down a home.”\"cans<\/p>\n

These walls are packed with cans, tyres and bottles. (ABC News: Eden Hynninen)<\/p>\n

Ms Kelly’s home will take about three months to build and will cost about the same as a conventional home, Mr Freney said.<\/p>\n

He said the entire building would be covered by earth, similar to an underground home, but it would be built at ground level, with earth mounded up and around it.<\/p>\n

“Earthships are cheaper to run than your regular home because they’re highly energy and water efficient, because all the earth surrounding the building is amazing insulation,” he said.<\/p>\n

\"a<\/p>\n

Resident work dog made from mud on site.\u00a0 (ABC News: Eden Hynninen)<\/p>\n

Millions of tyres dumped each year<\/p>\n

Across Australia, millions of tyres are dumped every year<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Mr Freney said Earthships provided a solution to this, using more than 350 tyres rammed full of dirt to construct the home’s walls.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

35 workers have come from far and wide to build this Earthship. (ABC News: Joan Pahissa)<\/p>\n

“It means that the materials don’t have to go into the waste stream, and it just replaces others materials such as bricks, steel and timber. All those things now don’t need to be manufactured,” Mr Freney said.<\/p>\n

Worker Chevaun Buchecker got her hands and feet dirty making a natural render for the walls.<\/p>\n

\"a<\/p>\n

Chevaun Buchecker travelled from South Australia to take part in her first build. (ABC News: Eden Hynninen)<\/p>\n

“The clay is from the property and the sand is mainly from here as well,” Ms Buchecker said.<\/p>\n

“Once that’s all mixed, it will be added with a bit of straw and then it’s going to be used for the inside plastering.”<\/p>\n

Ms Buchecker travelled from South Australia to be part of the build.<\/p>\n

“A lot of us have come here for a bunch of different reasons, and I think we’ve found the community to be the most beautiful, healing, amazing part of it,” she said.\"Earthship<\/p>\n

The roof on the Earthship has recently been attached.\u00a0 (Supplied: Martin Freney)<\/p>\n

Ms Kelly said fire would always be part of life in Pomonal, but hoped her new home would inspire others to build differently.<\/p>\n

“I’m wanting to create confidence in this community that you can live in a bushfire zone, you can build here and you can survive a bushfire,” she said.<\/p>\n

“Not only are the people resilient, but we want to create resilient builds.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dee-Ann Kelly fled her home with a handful of possessions and her pets when a bushfire threatened the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8499,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[22,21,5715,6868,9942,3683,9945,9946,1504,9941,5211,1388,9944,9943],"class_list":{"0":"post-8498","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-australia","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-austrlia","10":"tag-bushfire","11":"tag-community","12":"tag-earthship","13":"tag-environment","14":"tag-environment-protection","15":"tag-good-news","16":"tag-goodnews","17":"tag-pomonal-fires","18":"tag-recovery","19":"tag-sustainability","20":"tag-tyre","21":"tag-waste"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8498","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8498"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8498\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8499"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8498"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8498"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8498"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}