A volunteer firefighter has been taken to hospital with burns while battling a bushfire in Western Australia’s South West.
The man, aged in his 50s, suffered burns to his hand and neck after flames engulfed his firefighting vehicle near Capel, 196 kilometres south of Perth on Tuesday.
Crews were called to The Plains, on the town’s outskirts, just before 11:30am after the fire ignited in a wheat crop.
The blaze was accidental, sparked by a harvester processing wheat.
Chris Scott is the local brigade captain for the Shire of Capel. (ABC South West: Andrew Williams)
More than 60 firefighters were on the scene battling the blaze in strong, southerly winds.
Elgin Bushfire Brigade captain Chris Scott said it was a change in wind direction that caused the fire to jump a vehicle and injure the crew member.
“The wind was swirling around from south-west to the south-east, and that’s when it’s jumped to the east side of the road,” Mr Scott said.
The fire started east of the town site around 11:30 on Tuesday morning. (ABC South West: Andrew Williams)
“Two in the light tank were injured, they had a burn over and got caught in the back with a change of wind.
“It’s been very hard to contain. They were doing what they were supposed to do. It’s just the wind changed directions.”
The volunteer was taken to Bunbury Hospital for treatment, while a second firefighter in the vehicle was not injured.
Mr Scott said it could not have been prevented with firefighters well-trained for this type of incident.
The burnt vehicle. (ABC South West: Andrew Williams)
“We volunteer for these things and we know what we’re going into,” he said.
“We don’t like anyone to get hurt, but an accident is an accident and the cause of it was an accident. It’s the deliberate ones that we don’t like.
“Accidents like these just happen and we can’t do anything about it.”
Capel Farmer Rob Bell, who owns the crop the fire was in, was driving the harvester that sparked the blaze.
He says the fire started when the harvester’s alternator seized and dropped hot metal into the crop.
‘We own five harvesters with our seed business and they’re looked after pretty meticulously, but in this case it was an alternator that seized,” Mr Bell said.
“I realised pretty quickly that there was something wrong.
“As I looked back, it had started a small fire.”
The blaze burnt through 80 hectares of wheat crop. (ABC South West: Andrew Williams)
Two fire units onsite worked to extinguish the blaze, with Mr Bell receiving minor burns in the process.
However a “freak gust” of wind came through, re-igniting the fire.
As a volunteer firefighter himself, Mr Bell says without air support his property would have been “in trouble”.
“I looked across at one point and thought we need to fall back to a road because we’re not going to stop this one,” he said.
‘We’re just grateful the firefighters got there as quick as they could.
“I describe my burns as bad day in the kitchen to be honest, they’re not too bad. It’s just a few blisters.”
The fire burned through 80 hectares and was brought under control just after 1pm, with the help of 15 crews and water bombers.
