A major blaze that destroyed 18 homes in Perth’s north is now under control, but the cause is still not known. The fire started on Wednesday - and it's too early to tell if it was deliberately lit. Wanneroo was one of the worst affected areas and residents are starting to return to their homes. Mayor Linda Aitken says it’s been hard for the entire community.
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00:00 Well, of course, it's devastating for families with the loss of their homes. There's been
00:06 loss of businesses and loss of crops, and we will work to support them as they go home
00:12 and start to rebuild their lives. We are working with them to minimise their emotional well-being,
00:19 to maximise their emotional well-being and minimise the damage. We've come together as
00:24 a community supporting them. We have the Lord Mayor's Disaster Relief Fund. We have community
00:31 aid agencies on board, and we are looking to going into the recovery period now and
00:37 looking to support them. It will be a two-year recovery.
00:41 I haven't got in contact with all of them personally, but my team here at Wanneroo has
00:46 contacted every single one of them, and they've all been accompanied back to their homes with
00:52 a chaplain and with people on board. We will remain in constant contact with them, supporting
00:58 them, making sure that they have food, they have adequate clothing, they have a roof over
01:05 their head and they're well supported, and also the decision-making processes they've
01:09 got to make moving forward about how to rebuild, what will happen. With the construction industry
01:16 and the housing building industry at the moment, we will support them if they want to rebuild
01:21 their homes, how they want to rebuild them as quickly as possible. We will do everything
01:25 we can to support our people.
01:28 Is the funding there for that?
01:31 At the moment, it's not. We started the Lord Mayor's Disaster Relief Fund. At the moment,
01:37 they will get... each person who's lost a home completely, they will get $5,000. Those
01:42 who've had a damaged home, a severely damaged home, and we have 12 of those on top of the
01:47 18 that were lost, will receive $3,000. And this is just a stump-up so that if they need
01:53 to buy clothes, if they need to pay a bond for rent to find accommodation, if they need
01:58 to put food on the table, and there will be more to come.
02:03 And looking on the flip side of it, I mean, the fire as a whole, 280 homes were saved
02:08 in this by the efforts of firefighters. It was a huge effort, wasn't it?
02:12 It was amazing. The incident controller who managed the whole thing was amazing. His name
02:17 was Clinton Kutcher. And all of the teams, whether it be community services, DFES, Parks
02:25 and Wildlife in the City of Wanneroo staff and community members, we just all came together
02:30 and we've done the best we can and we will have the best outcomes because we work together
02:35 so well as a community.
02:37 That's really good to hear. Moving forward, as to the recovery, as you said, it's going
02:42 to take two years. What will that look like?
02:45 Well, initially we'll look at infrastructure. We'll look at supporting people as the decision-making
02:52 process has happened of what they need to make decision-wise. It'll just be a step at
02:58 a time.
02:59 Wanneroo Mayor Linda Aitken, thank you for joining us.
03:02 Thank you.
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