A man has faced court after allegedly sparking an emergency-level bushfire in the Perth Hills that left thousands of people without power and threatened lives and homes.<\/p>\n
The blaze has now been downgraded to a watch and act after firefighters spent the night trying to bring it under control, but authorities warn it still poses a significant risk to the community.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The fire was reported around 12.30am and about 160 ground crew have been contending with difficult terrain and searing heat, with an expected forecast maximum of 36 degrees Celsius.<\/p>\n
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The bushfire reached emergency level in the Kalamunda-Maida Vale area before being downgraded.\u00a0 (Supplied)<\/p>\n
The watch and act warning covers parts of Maida Vale, Forrestfield and Kalamunda, with authorities saying it is contained but not controlled.<\/p>\n
According to EmergencyWA, several roads have been closed<\/a>, including:<\/p>\n Holmes Road between Norwood Road and Dampiera Court;West Terrace, south of Norwood Road;Temby Avenue, south of Brine Road.<\/p>\n The Department of Communities had closed the evacuation centre at High Wycombe Community and Recreation Centre, 200 Newburn Road, High Wycombe, the authority added.\u00a0<\/p>\n Man ’caused catastrophic event’<\/p>\n Luke Joseph Grguric, 19, faced Perth Magistrates Court on Thursday afternoon after he allegedly threw a firecracker into dry grass on Temby Avenue in Kalamunda, igniting the blaze as Perth rang in the new year.\u00a0<\/p>\n The court heard he panicked as the fire took hold, and unsuccessfully tried to put it out by stomping on it, before alerting neighbours and emergency services.<\/p>\n “Those actions have caused what is tantamount to a catastrophic event,” the police prosecutor told the court, saying Mr Grguric was “recklessly negligent”.<\/p>\n Luke Grguric was flanked by his parents, whom he lives with, as he left court on Thursday afternoon.\u00a0 (ABC News: Dave Weber)<\/p>\n Mr Grguric was charged with failing to ensure an ignition or fire source would not cause a fire that could not be controlled.<\/p>\n Mr Grguric, who had no criminal record, was granted bail, with the magistrate accepting he was unlikely to reoffend.<\/p>\n His lawyer said he had made “concerted efforts to extinguish the fire”.<\/p>\n By daybreak, firefighters were still battling the blaze in the Kalamunda-Maida Vale area. (Supplied: Kalamunda Volunteer Bush Fire Brigade)<\/p>\n ‘We had to get out’<\/p>\n Maida Vale resident Dick Mizerski and his wife woke up in the middle of the night to the smell of smoke, and could see flames across the road from their home, which had lost power.<\/p>\n Dick Mizerski and his wife were forced to flee their home as the fire threatened to engulf it.<\/p>\n \u00a0 (ABC News: Cason Ho)<\/p>\n “We woke up to fire all around us, and knew we had to get out,” he said.<\/p>\n “The only thing we could do was get two dogs, one dog wouldn’t come, he was scared.”<\/p>\n Smoke had enveloped Mr Mizerski’s home and he said visibility was so poor he effectively drove blind on his driveway.<\/p>\n “It was dark and you couldn’t see anything; lights were out, fire was all around. I can’t believe everything was on fire,” he said.<\/p>\n It took a mammoth effort to try to contain the bushfire overnight.\u00a0 (Supplied: Kalamunda Volunteer Bush Fire Brigade)<\/p>\n “It was just white \u2026 it was just smoke. I don’t know how I did it, I just kind of judged where I had to turn \u2026 the gate is electric, so I had to drive through it to open it up.<\/p>\n “The only thing that matters to me now is my dog \u2026 I just hope he didn’t suffer if he died.”<\/p>\n Many residents waited anxiously at roadblocks on Thursday morning as emergency services attempted to ensure their homes were safe enough to return to.<\/p>\n Police say a firecracker sparked the emergency-level blaze as people were ringing in the new year. (Supplied: Jye Jeaks)<\/p>\n Reports of damage<\/p>\n DFES incident controller Paul Postma said there had been unconfirmed reports of damage to fences, a boat, outside structures and a pool shed.<\/p>\n On Thursday afternoon, he told a community meeting that a number of properties along Holmes Road in Maida Vale had been impacted.\u00a0<\/p>\n “There’s been no losses of residential property but there has been some damage to property and equipment,” he said.<\/p>\n This picture was taken from Crump Road in Maida Vale. (Supplied: Brad Ness)<\/p>\n Mr Postma said the fire was still burning inside containment lines, but it still posed a “significant risk to the community” amid challenging weather conditions and difficult terrain.\u00a0<\/p>\n “We currently have the fire inside a box; we are slowly winning the war to put the fire out but the fire is still quite active,” he told residents.\u00a0<\/p>\n He said firefighters would need to continue battling the blaze overnight and on Friday.\u00a0<\/p>\n The blaze left hundreds of homes without power. (ABC News)<\/p>\n Aerial support has been helping fire crews on the ground battle the blaze, while a contingent of firefighters from South Australia is on its way to support their WA counterparts.<\/p>\n South Australian Country Fire Service incident controller Stephen Boucher said 25 firefighters and other personnel were heading to Perth and Boddington in the state’s South West.<\/p>\n “This is a great opportunity to be deployed and support our friends and families in Western Australia,” he said.<\/p>\n SA Country Fire Service personnel are flying to Perth to help WA with fighting bushfires. (ABC News)<\/p>\n At the height of the blaze, more than 2,000 homes and businesses lost power, but most had been restored by 9am.<\/p>\n About 50 people spent the night in an evacuation centre.<\/p>\n Resident Trevor Cook said he was ringing in the new year in Cervantes when he received a call from his daughter, who was at home in Maida Vale.<\/p>\n Maida Vale resident Trevor Cook was left waiting at a roadblock on New Year’s Day as he tried to return to his house.<\/p>\n \u00a0 (ABC News: Cason Ho)<\/p>\n “[She said] the house was full of smoke \u2026 when she opened the front door the hillside was just completely on fire,” Mr Cook said.<\/p>\n “She had to evacuate with the animals.”<\/p>\n Bushland razed<\/p>\n Authorities said power lines were down in the warning area and motorists should drive with caution.<\/p>\n The fire was clearly visible overnight from Forrestfield, where some residents were also told to evacuate. (Supplied: Lisa Dale)<\/p>\n A number of roads remained closed at 3pm on Thursday, including Temby Avenue at Brine Road and Holmes Road at Wandoo, but people should head to EmergencyWA<\/a> for the latest information.<\/p>\n Several walking trails have been closed in the Mundy Regional Park after the blaze razed more than 30 hectares of bushland.\u00a0<\/p>\n Firefighters spent the early hours of New Year’s Day trying to stop the spread of the blaze. (ABC News)<\/p>\n Mr Grguric is next due in court on January \u00a029.<\/p>\n WA Emergency InformationCheck the warning information and incident map on the official EmergencyWA website<\/a>.For emergency assistance during severe weather and floods, contact the SES on 131 500.If your life is in danger call triple-zero (000).Check if roads are closed on the Main Roads WA website<\/a>.Report any power outages to Western Power<\/a> or Horizon Power<\/a>.For all local warnings and information visit ABC Emergency<\/a> and listen to ABC Local Radio on the ABC Listen app.<\/a>Loading<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A man has faced court after allegedly sparking an emergency-level bushfire in the Perth Hills that left thousands…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":384758,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,180250,40359,52852,206721,206720,206722,44,180247,81361,86,33608,180251,180248,180249,45],"class_list":["post-384757","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-bushfire-emergency","tag-dfes","tag-firefighters","tag-kalamunda-fire","tag-maida-vale-fire","tag-new-years-eve-fire","tag-news","tag-perth-bushfire","tag-perth-fire","tag-perth-news","tag-ses","tag-wa-bushfire","tag-wa-fire","tag-wa-fires","tag-wa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/384757","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=384757"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/384757\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/384758"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=384757"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=384757"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=384757"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/p>\n
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