Firefighters are urgently trying to control a bushfire that threatened lives and homes and saw schools evacuated in Perth's southern suburbs as the city swelters through an unseasonal heatwave.
Key points:
- An emergency fire threatened homes, schools and closed the freeway
- Perth is in the grips of an unusual November heatwave
- A second emergency fire has been declared in the city's north
Meanwhile, a second emergency fire was declared in Perth's north at 3:45pm on Wednesday.
Residents in the largely rural suburbs of Mariginiup and Jandabup are being told to evacuate their properties.
The fire is burning through bush areas and is sending plumes of smoke across Perth's north.
Earlier in the day in Perth's south, an emergency warning was issued for residents in Aubin Grove and Hammond Park, as temperatures soared into the high 30s.
The fire closed the busy Kwinana Freeway for two hours and saw children evacuated from schools and daycare centres as residents worked to protect their homes from embers being blown around the neighbourhood.
Traffic was banked up across a large stretch of the freeway in both directions about 26 kilometres south of Perth's CBD.
Aerial vision showed shipping containers on fire in a semi rural block.
The fire has since been downgraded to a watch and act level, however, it has not yet been contained or controlled.
Incident controller Damon Childs said the fire had burnt though about 20 hectares.
"At present we haven't had any reports of damage to property but we're still assessing those," he said.
Mr Childs said he expected people would be able to return to their homes tonight.
"We'll have patrols working for the evening and our objective is that the whole area will be extinguished, and everything will be back to normal by 8 o'clock tomorrow morning."
"The cause of the fire is still undetermined, we've got fire investigation team coming out — the information we've got so far is it's accidental but we need to confirm that.
Mr Childs said the fire spread was larger than would be expected at this time of year.
'A hot, crackling inferno'
Hammond Park resident Katy said while her home was safe, the fence line of many of her neighbours' homes were ablaze, and she had sore knuckles from banging on all their doors.
"It was like a hot, crackling inferno," she said.
"It was rapid, it just went from licking the fences to all of a sudden blowing all the way down and it was just billowing smoke.
"I kept ringing the fire brigade and saying 'you've got to send every crew you've got in WA' because it was bad. It was really, really bad."
Katy said the wind made the fire worse thought her neighbourhood had been lucky not to have any serious property damage or death.
"Make sure you've got an evacuation plan ready," she said.
"Anything that is dry, keep it cut real, real short. Have sand on the ready, have hoses on the ready.
The temperature in Perth is expected to reach 39 degrees Celsius today as the city heads into an unseasonably sweltering heatwave.
Schools evacuated
Hammond Park Primary School and Secondary School have been evacuated, as well as Aubin Grove Primary School.
Loading...Earlier, staff at a childcare centre near Atkins Parade Park were forced to make a triple-zero call as flames came dangerously close.
That centre was also evacuated.
Aerial support was called in to fight the fire.
Local resident, Aaron Adams-Florenca, who called Triple-0, said he saw smoke coming from a nearby rural block while getting ready to leave for work.
"The embers have pushed spot fires everywhere, it just went crazy," he said.
"I'm walking around with a mop bucket trying to put out little spot fires.
"I realised a mate had a dog in his yard, so me and another guy jumped the fence and got the dog out.
"You can see all the flames near the houses, pretty lucky that none of the houses have lit up.
"The water bombers have been wicked and the firies and emergency services crew have done great job."
Tyson Utting headed home to help out his stepmother after his school was evacuated.
"It burned through our fence a little bit up there," he said pointing to the back half of his home."
He said fire had burnt a caravan in the house behind them, narrowly missing its gasoline can.
Heatwave sets in
The fire comes as Perth and WA's south enters a second day of an "unprecedented" November heatwave.
The Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) took the unusual step of issuing a severe heatwave warning, with weather records in the city and many other towns expected to be broken.
Temperatures are tipped to hit the high 30s for the next five days, including a 40C day on Thursday.
"It's very unusual to see a severe heatwave in November for the west coast, in fact, Perth has never seen a severe heatwave in November," said BOM's Jessica Lingard.
"Perth has actually only ever had four 40-degree days in November, and we could add another one to that tally … there's a chance we could even add a second one as well [this week]."
In the state's north, the town of Roebourne was expecting a maximum of 41C.
Local resident Tootsie Daniel said she was keeping indoors.
"One of my families was saying, 'gee, it's hot outside,' and my daughter said 'yes, it's a heatwave today'," she said.
"If you are on a country … those people will be feeling the heat more but they go somewhere where there's water.
"Something to keep cool and the shade to keep cool."
Additional reporting by Briana Shepherd, Jesmine Cheong, David Weber and Gian De Poloni.
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