{"id":602044,"date":"2026-04-12T12:39:17","date_gmt":"2026-04-12T12:39:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/602044\/"},"modified":"2026-04-12T12:39:17","modified_gmt":"2026-04-12T12:39:17","slug":"emergency-warning-issued-after-blaze-at-perth-battery-recycling-facility","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/602044\/","title":{"rendered":"Emergency warning issued after blaze at Perth battery recycling facility"},"content":{"rendered":"

A man has been taken to hospital and a HAZMAT emergency warning has been issued as a serious fire burns at a lithium-ion battery recycling facility in Perth’s south-eastern suburbs.<\/p>\n

The warning was issued just before 3pm for potentially hazardous smoke in the area. \u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Flames<\/p>\n

The blaze was spotted at about 1:45pm.\u00a0 (ABC News)<\/p>\n

The Department of Fire and Emergency Services (DFES) said people in the area should remain inside, out of the smoke or fumes, with doors and windows closed and air-conditioners off.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The blaze, at Li-ion Energy on Burwash Place, was first spotted by Maddington Fire Station officers at 1:45pm.<\/p>\n

DFES Incident Controller Leigh Bishop said about 80 tonnes of lithium-ion solid-state batteries were inside the facility.<\/p>\n

“Crews entered to try and do an internal attack, and from that point it was quickly understood that that wasn’t going to be able to be achieved,” he said.<\/p>\n

“So we went to the strategy of an external attack to protect our crews first and foremost, and then to try and contain the fire as best as possible.”<\/p>\n

\"Flames<\/p>\n

The blaze broke out at a lithium-ion battery recycling plant in Maddington.\u00a0 (ABC News)<\/p>\n

Superintendent Bishop said up to 50 career firefighters worked to contain the blaze with support from WA Police, St John Ambulance and the Department of Water and Environmental Regulation.<\/p>\n

“The crews have done an incredible job once again in trying conditions in the heat,” he said.<\/p>\n

“For the next hours, and it will be hours into the night, where crews will be providing protection of the buildings and then just a continued suppression to full extinguishment.”<\/p>\n

While the exact cause of the blaze will be investigated, Superintendent Bishop said business owner Justin Manton told him he thinks he saw it ignite.<\/p>\n

“The property owner did advise me that when they saw the fire initiate, it was in the middle of a pallet of batteries,” he said.<\/p>\n

“They attempted to extinguish [it], but they removed themselves really quickly just due to the fire intensity increasing as it did.”<\/p>\n

‘We’ll struggle to get through’<\/p>\n

Mr Manton said the blaze and extensive damage it caused would be hard to recover from.<\/p>\n

“I think we’ll struggle to get through this one,” Mr Manton said.<\/p>\n

“We’ve got a lot of the batteries here but most of them are de-energised \u2026 they’re about to go on a boat so they’re all stacked up nice and neat to go out.<\/p>\n

“[There’s] well over $7 million in lost goods, and then there’s the building.<\/p>\n

“We’re a two-year-old business, but we’ve done well so far. These things happen, we’ll just learn from it.”<\/p>\n

St John said one man was taken to Fiona Stanley Hospital, believed to be suffering from smoke inhalation, while another man was treated at the scene.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Flames<\/p>\n

Crews from multiple stations descended on the Maddington facility.\u00a0 (ABC News)<\/p>\n

A thick plume of smoke could be seen billowing with intense flames at the scene.<\/p>\n

The fire is close to the Armadale train line, which was closed on Sunday afternoon between Cannington and Gosnells.<\/p>\n

Albany Highway is closed between River Avenue and Stokely Creek Crossing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A man has been taken to hospital and a HAZMAT emergency warning has been issued as a serious…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":602045,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,293352,293354,293353,44,86,45],"class_list":["post-602044","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-li-ion-battery-recycling","tag-lithium-ion-battery-fire","tag-maddington-hazmat-fire","tag-news","tag-perth-news","tag-wa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/602044","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=602044"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/602044\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/602045"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=602044"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=602044"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=602044"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}