Firefighters say a suspicious blaze that destroyed a factory in Melbourne's north this morning came close to spreading to neighbouring businesses. Police say a car was driven into the factory and set alight.
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00:00Fire crews are still dousing hotspots after this blaze here at this factory on Barry Road
00:08in Tullamarine, which is about 14 kilometres northwest of Melbourne's CBD.
00:14Now police say that a car was deliberately driven into the front of this premises and
00:20then set alight and luckily no one was inside as the flames very rapidly took hold and Fire
00:27Rescue Victoria says by the time fire crews arrived here, just seven minutes after receiving
00:34triple zero calls, this building was already fully engulfed in flames.
00:40Now this is a car detailing business and Fire Commander John Zuccarelli says that around
00:4680 firefighters and 25 appliances that were here worked very hard to stop these flames
00:53spreading to adjoining buildings.
00:56The fire was through the roof, which to us indicates that the fuel loading is reasonable
01:02inside.
01:03The biggest hazard that we have is the actual structure collapse, the design of the building.
01:07The fire has been contained, however structurally it has had some damage, which means we've
01:13got a 12 metre exclusion zone that is currently where the firefighters are working.
01:19It took fire crews more than an hour to bring this blaze under control.
01:23They also had to cut gas and also electrical connection with big power lines along Barrie Road.
01:31Now we know that this has gutted the entire 350 square metre building and this also caused
01:40a lot of headaches for people around the area with smoke alerts being issued in a two kilometre
01:46radius as well as these roads being blocked to traffic with early morning workers not
01:53able to get into this very busy industrial area.
01:57Police say that this does remain suspicious and they are going to have an arson chemist
02:02come along to try to pinpoint exactly what was used to start this blaze.
02:08They're asking for anyone with information who witnessed it or who has dash cam footage
02:14to contact them.