Posted
Emergency services remain on high alert after about
150 firefighters worked through the night to bring a large bushfire in
Perth's south under control.
Key points:
- An emergency warning for the bushfire has been downgraded to a watch and act
- The fire has been brought under control but has still not been contained
- Fire crews are working to keep the blaze away from the Kwinana Freeway
The fire started on the eastern side of the Kwinana Freeway in Baldivis about midday yesterday and quickly spread north-east, fanned by strong winds.
At its peak, the blaze was spreading about 2.5 kilometres per hour and was spotting 300 to 400 metres ahead of the main fire.
It burned through paddocks and rural properties, including a horse riding school where several panicked horses could be seen in helicopter footage.
The bushfire also jumped the Serpentine River and while it has now been brought under control, it has still not been contained.
Department of Fire and Emergency Services (DFES) incident controller Peter Sutton told ABC Radio Perth the fire had burned through about 1,200 hectares and had a perimeter of about 27 kilometres.
An emergency warning was in place for several hours yesterday, but that has now been downgraded to a watch and act level.
At least one shed was damaged along with some fencing, but DFES rapid damage assessment teams will be deployed in the area today to see what else might have been affected.
More than 40 people made use of a temporary evacuation centre overnight at the Mike Barnett Sports Complex on Dixon Road in Rockingham.
Today the wind direction is expected to be mainly east to south-easterly, with potential gusts of 40-50 kilometres per hour which could make the situation more dangerous for people west of the fire.
Fears Kwinana Freeway could be affected
Mr Sutton said there was a risk the fire could break containment lines to the west and plans had been made overnight for that possibility.
"It is likely that if that occurred it would potentially impact the freeway, and then west of the freeway," he said.
"So we're just asking people to be vigilant."
Mr Sutton said for people who live in the fire area who had left, it was still too unsafe for them to return.
"We do have firefighters working on the roads and we've had trees fall on the roads during the night which is quite dangerous," he said."We do have 90 homes without power in the fire area, this, of course, has been caused by damage to half-a-dozen power poles."
The watch and act warning is in place for parts of Mundijong, Hopeland, Oldbury, Mardella, Serpentine, Baldivis, Wellard and Cardup in the City of Kwinana, City of Rockingham and Shire of Serpentine-Jarrahdale.
It covers people in an area bounded by Mortimer Road and Gossage Road to the north, Kwinana Freeway to the west, Karnup Road to the south and Kargotich Road to the east, but not including the freeway
A number of roads in the area remain closed.
Stay across our bushfire coverage:
- Snow guns being used to defend Victorian alpine properties
- People in coastal Kangaroo Island town of Kingscote cornered by fires
- Kosciuszko National Park could take centuries to recover from bushfire damage
- What the experts say about hazard reduction burns and our current fire catastrophe
- 'We're stepping up': Billionaire Andrew Forrest pledges $70m for bushfire relief and recovery
- Wildlife experts say over a billion animals now dead in NSW bushfires
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