General News
26 February, 2026
Suspicious blaze destroys smoke store
THE quiet of an early Thursday morning (February 19) was broken in central Dimboola last week with a tobacco store fire that police have described as suspicious.
Locals nearby were awakened by loud noises at just before 2.40am to discover significant flames and smoke coming from the premises at 74 Lloyd Street.
Despite fire units arriving promptly within five minutes, much of the interior had been destroyed.
Living behind the Pink Lake Gallery across the road, Rose Shaw had been awake since just after 2am and was likely the first to notice something wrong, quickly waking her husband, Neil.
“All of a sudden I heard this bang,” she said.
“I came out the door here, and that was in flames – everything!”
Neil said, “(Rose) woke me up and said, ‘The shop across the road’s on fire!’
“I came to the front door and had a look, and then I went back and got my phone and went out and rang it in.
He said little explosions were going off “like firecrackers”, as he was on the phone, and he asked the operator, “Can you hear it in the background? – she said, ‘yeah, I can hear it.’”
“Just as I was ringing it in, the baker (Russell Miller) turned up in the shop (Wimmera Bakery, next door),” Neil said.
“I gave him a wave, and he opened the door and came out (and) said, ‘Have you called?’, (I said) ‘I've called Triple Zero’, but it was well alight.”
Just a few doors down from the Shaws, Ilse Aschenbrenner from an upstairs room first heard what “sounded like somebody pulling metal off a roof or something, just ripping it off”.
Half-asleep, she initially thought it was “Neil doing renovations” and drifted back to slumber, “but then my son woke me up and said ‘you’ve got to look out the front’”.
“The flames were well over the building,” Ilse said.
Meanwhile, in the bakery, Russell had pulled out an internal fire hose across to next door, which he admitted, “did a bit, but not a lot” until the fire engines rolled up at 2.44am.
His first warning that something was amiss was also the strange noises.
“I was out the back in the bakery, and I just heard, pop, pop, pop,” Russell said.
“I went out and looked out the window, and I saw Neil out there with his phone.”
He said his initial concern had been the fire being so close, potentially compromising the bakery's side wall, but when daylight came, he was relieved to learn the structure was safe.
“We’re two separate buildings,” Russell said.
“They’ve got a brick wall on theirs, and we’ve got a brick wall on ours.”
He said he was also happy that emergency services quickly put out the fire, and they never lost power, although the heat blackened the wires crossing in front of the tobacco shop.
Nevertheless, the bakery had to close on Thursday, with the main street cordoned off outside of the scene – police from Horsham were in attendance and investigating, labelling the blaze as “suspicious”.
Forensic officers from Melbourne had also been called and were poring over the site on Thursday afternoon, including the remains of the front door lying in the middle of the street, apparently forcibly pulled off its hinges by a vehicle.
Police said no one was inside the building at the time and asked for help from anyone who may have witnessed the incident, including providing CCTV/dashcam footage.
The store had been subject to a search warrant issued by the Horsham Crime Investigation Unit on February 13.
Police seized 36,840 cigarettes from the address, with a 22-year-old Dimboola man arrested on the day.
He was interviewed and released pending summons, expected to be charged with possessing a tobacco product with the intention to defraud the revenue.
For the locals, the excitement meant Ilse couldn’t sleep again until four o’clock, the Shaws couldn’t sleep at all, and Russell used his delivery runs to Nhill and Warracknabeal as “a chance to get my breath back”.
The bakery reopened on Friday, and police urged anyone with information about the incident to contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000 or report at www.crimestoppersvic.com.au.