Curator Liza Dale-Hallett stands beside the rebuilt chimney at
the Melbourne Museum.  Curator Liza Dale-Hallett stands beside
the rebuilt chimney at the Melbourne Museum. Photo: Rebecca
Hallas  THE chimney stands alone among the towering trees - a
token of home and hearth, but also, in the absence of the
homestead that once surrounded it, a reminder of the desolation
of Black Saturday.  The chimney came, brick by brick, from
Kinglake. A century ago its hearth warmed a prosperous country
house, the Uplands, and according to Helen Drayton, the
granddaughter of its former owner, it was the focal point for a
tiny country community.  Now, scarred and discoloured by the
heat of the Kilmore fire, its seven-metre height has been
transported to the city and erected in the forest gallery of the
Melbourne Museum.  It's the first part of Museum Victoria's
growing bushfire collection to go on display, and is a
downpayment on a permanent bushfire gallery.  The Sunday Age,
which has campaigned for a Victorian fire museum an