A historic north-west Victorian pub has been destroyed by fire a century after it was rebuilt following a previous blaze.
Four people, including the two owners, a staffer and a resident, escaped unharmed after fire engulfed the two-storey Lascelles Minapre Hotel overnight.
Eleven fire crews were called to the pub at Lascelles, on the Sunraysia Highway south of Mildura, just after 2am to find the 119-year-old building well alight.
The Lascelles Minapre Hotel’s roof was destroyed by fire. (Supplied: Daniel Floyd)
Limited water access resulted in responses from the Mildura and Sea Lake brigades who brought an aerial unit, and extra tankers and pumpers.
CFA incident controller Daniel Floyd told ABC Wimmera the community had lost its meeting place.
“The bottle shop is left, a couple rooms out the back and the kitchen. But that’s about it,” Mr Floyd said.
“It’s very, very devastating.”
The Lascelles Hotel, originally built in 1905 and rebuilt as the Lascelles Minapre Hotel in 1926 after a previous fire, has long served as the meeting place for the Lascelles community of about 100 people.
The hotel before it was burnt to the ground. (ABC Central Victoria: Larissa Romensky)
It took firefighters three hours to control the blaze and eight crews remain on site.
An investigation into the cause of the fire will begin today.