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SORROW: A fleet of hearses outside the Mt Gravatt church where the Lale family funeral took place. Pic: Peter Wallis
Source: The Courier-Mail

MOURNED: The program for the Lale family funeral. Pic: Peter Wallis
Source: The Courier-Mail

A FUNERAL service for a mother and her five children who perished in the Slacks Creek house fire last month has commenced in Mt Gravatt this morning.

Although the extended Samoan and Tongan family members have been mourning since the August 24, the fateful night of the house fire on Wagonsveldt St, today’s service is the first of the funerals to finally say good bye to their 11 loved ones of an extended family who were killed.

Neti Lale and her five children, Jerry, 18, Paul, 17, Lafoa’i, 14, Selamafi, 9 and Richard, 7, are being laid to rest following the two-hour funeral today, starting at 10am at Hillsong Church in Mt Gravatt.

At least 1500 mourners, including children in their school uniform, gathered outside Mt Gravatt’s Hillsong church as they waited for the bodies of Neti Lale and her five children to arrive for the funeral.

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Family and friends dresses in black, police officers, community leaders and politicians were among the crowd, many carrying flowers, wreaths and photos decorated with more flowers.

Jeremiah Lale told the service God would help him through. He said his beautiful wife, whom he married in Inala in 1993, and their five children made him so happy.

Mr Lale said Neti was more like a mother, who took care of the house, the kids and the cooking.

“She did everything for me, everything. I go to work and I come home,” he said.

Mr Lale addressed his wife and children, saying they had left their daddy behind, but they took his heart with them.

“I know you’re all up there in God’s hands, so I’m gonna face it, face it together,” he said.

“I love you, you are all in my heart.” Mr Lale then repeated himself in Samoan.

Glenala high school principal Corinne McMillan said the three oldest children, Jerry, Paul Jeanette were respectful children who were well liked at the school.

She said Jerry and Paul played representative rugby, with the support of their parents. Neti Lale was often the only one on the sidelines supporting the team.

Jeanette was musically talented “just like the rest of the Lale family”.

Choking back tears, Ms McMillan said Jeanette’s smile was the envy of everyone.

Three large TV screens have been hung at the front of the church, displaying rolling pictures of the five caskets, Neti in the middle of her children, photos of them, with a photo of the family in the middle screen.

Logan Mayor Pam Parker also delivered some floral tributes personally to the church.

Men gathered around a hearse, some being comforted by others, rest in peace blazoned in white across the back of their black shirts. White caskets, one with a picture of a guitar, some with flowers painted on the end, were carried into the church one after the other to mark the start of the ceremony.

Neti’s husband and father of the children, Jeremiah Lale, 50, was one of only three people to survive the fire, along with Tau Taufa, 65, and Misi Matauaina, 26.

Tau lost his wife Fusi Neti’s older sister – daughter Annamaria Taufa, three grandchildren, three nephews and nieces.

Misi lost his partner Annamaria Taufa, 23, and their two daughters La’Haina, 7, and Kahlani, 3.

Their cousin Ardelle Lee, 16, who was staying the night, also died.

The Lale family were due to move out of the Taufa house – where they had been staying temporarily with their extended family – the very next day.

Days after the fire, which is believed to have started in a downstairs office and has been ruled an accident, Jeremiah Lale told of hearing his family’s screams as he tried to save them.

He had woken up to the sound of loud noises and smell of smoke about midnight and could not see past his hand.

Mr Lale gathered his wife and children and told them to remain together in one room while he found an escape route.

He kicked down a door only to discover the outside stairs had already burnt down.

Frantically running back to where he left his family, he could not find them or hear them, even though he was crying out to them desperately.

Mr Lale rationalised that his wife and children must have jumped out of a window and to safety so he leapt from a second storey window and ran around the outside of the house, still calling for his family, expecting to see them there, safe.

It was later revealed by police and fire investigators that the floor of the loungeroom, where Mr Lale last saw his family, had collapsed.

It is not yet known whether the Lale family died of smoke inhalation or when the floor collapsed.

Members of the extended families, many wearing traditional Polynesian ceremonial dress – grass matting known as tauvala – maintained a 24-hour vigil outside the Wagonsveldt Street house for the weeks following the fire.

The bodies of the 11 victims were only released by the state coroner’s office last week, following forensic and DNA tests.

A five hour memorial service for the Lale family was held last night at the same church to mark the beginning of the funeral.

Memorial services for the Matauaina, Taufa and Lee families are scheduled to start tonight (WEDS) at 7pm at the Uniting Church on Bardon Road in Kingston.

The services will be held every night, with the Friday night service going from 5pm to midnight, and the funeral scheduled for 9am to 1pm Saturday at the Citipointe Church on Wecker Road, Carindale.

Burial will follow at the Mt Gravatt cemetery.

Investigators have ruled the tragic house fire as an accident.

The home was demolished last week.