{"id":519391,"date":"2026-03-05T03:00:19","date_gmt":"2026-03-05T03:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/519391\/"},"modified":"2026-03-05T03:00:19","modified_gmt":"2026-03-05T03:00:19","slug":"major-fire-engulfs-launceston-family-business-tamar-marine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/519391\/","title":{"rendered":"Major fire engulfs Launceston family business Tamar Marine"},"content":{"rendered":"

A family-run boating business that has served Tasmania\u2019s fishing and boating community for more than 40 years has been totally destroyed by fire, with damage estimated at more than $5 million.<\/p>\n

Launceston\u2019s Tamar Marine on West Tamar Road in Riverside was engulfed by flames shortly after midnight on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Neighbouring business Allmasts Australia and an adjoining slipway warehouse were also destroyed.<\/p>\n

Thirty firefighters rushed to the scene after multiple triple-zero calls were received from 12:02am.<\/p>\n

\"\"Flames consumed the building as emergency crews raced to the scene. Image \/ Tasmania Police<\/p>\n

They arrived within three minutes to find a large portion of the store on fire with flames coming from the second storey.<\/p>\n

District officer Rick Mahnken said the building was totally ablaze on arrival.<\/p>\n

\"\"Flames consumed the building as emergency crews raced to the scene. Image \/ Tasmania Police & Joanne Beswick<\/p>\n

\u201cDue to the complex nature of the fuels, the flames were intense,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey would have been very visible on the West Tamar here and for the surrounding houses.\u201d<\/p>\n

Crews from Launceston, Prospect, Ravenswood, Rocherlea and Legana battled the blaze for approximately two hours but were hampered by extremely low availability of mains water at the scene.<\/p>\n

Firefighters were forced to pump water directly from the Tamar River and access a hydrant across the highway, closing both lanes of West Tamar Road.<\/p>\n

\"\"Smoke from the fire rises over Launceston. Image \/ Andrew Jenour<\/p>\n

\u201cThis fire, due to the complex nature of fuels, required copious amounts of water,\u201d Mahnken said.<\/p>\n

The fire service said an excavator will be needed to fully extinguish the fire, with smoke expected to continue rising from the site until around midday.<\/p>\n

Mahnken said it was fortunate neighbouring homes were saved.<\/p>\n

\u201cVery lucky considering the nature of the blaze, the intensity of the radiant heat,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Walkways at the rear of the property suffered minor damage from radiant heat. No injuries were reported.<\/p>\n

West Tamar Road between Margaret Street and Forest Road was closed for approximately four hours while emergency services worked the scene. All roads had reopened by 4am.<\/p>\n

\"\"The family-run boating business has operated in Launceston for over 40 years. Image \/ File<\/p>\n

Established in 1979, Tamar Marine has operated as a locally owned family business for more than four decades, specialising in fishing, boating and marine equipment.<\/p>\n

Mahnken said the loss would be devastating for the owners. \u201cIt\u2019s an iconic building,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnyone that\u2019s been in this building, you just get amazed with how much gear is in there. And it\u2019s really sad to see that it\u2019s no longer there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tasmania Police and the Tasmania Fire Service are jointly investigating the cause.<\/p>\n

Fire investigators began examining the scene on Thursday morning and have confirmed the damage bill is expected to be over $5 million.<\/p>\n

Mahnken declined to say whether the fire was being treated as suspicious.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve got our regional fire investigator here trying their very best to classify the fire, whether that be accidental, deliberate, unknown,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The Environment Protection Authority is working with crews to prevent contaminated runoff entering the Tamar River.<\/p>\n

A smoke alert remains in place, though testing has confirmed the smoke poses no health risk.<\/p>\n

Police have urged anyone with information to come forward.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A family-run boating business that has served Tasmania\u2019s fishing and boating community for more than 40 years has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":519392,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44],"class_list":["post-519391","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/519391","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=519391"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/519391\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/519392"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=519391"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=519391"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=519391"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}