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.
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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.