A large fire has destroyed a home in Western Australia and come close to a medium-security prison

ABC NEWS (Australia)

Residents near Woorooloo, east of Perth, are counting the cost of a blaze, which has destroyed one home and five other structures, nearing a medium-security prison in the area.

Transcript

00:00A destructive start to 2025.

00:05This home near Woorooloo lost.

00:08The owners believed to be overseas.

00:10Another five non-residential buildings which includes sheds and greenhouses and machinery

00:17that was within those sheds have also been destroyed.

00:21Those whose property was spared grateful.

00:23At some level the effort that goes into containing property fires like this, it's truly unimaginable.

00:34And until you see it and you see the number of crews that work through the night, bulldozers,

00:39loader drivers, fire crews operated here all night.

00:43And as a consequence we've lost, we've really not lost much so we consider ourselves really

00:47lucky.

00:48The blaze tore through more than 700 hectares as firefighters deployed a massive response

00:53from the ground and air.

00:57That fight continuing on Thursday.

01:00The hard work of the firefighters throughout the night and some favourable wind conditions

01:03have enabled crews to build containment lines around a significant portion of the fire.

01:10The blaze came within 800 metres of the medium security Acacia prison, the state's largest prison.

01:17The more than 1,000 prisoners and staff were not evacuated from the facility.

01:23Firefighters worked closely with the prison to track the threat.

01:26The prison has an extensive firebreak arrangement around it and it has its own firefighting

01:33capability as well.

01:35We obviously put fire trucks and crews there to make sure that it was safe but they activated

01:41their emergency plan and we're very comfortable with that.

01:44The police arson squad and DFES are investigating the cause of the blaze with several recent

01:50fires in the area.

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