Emergency warning for West Toodyay, Coondle, and Julimar

Multiple bushfires are burning at emergency level in Western Australia - with hot, dry, and windy conditions increasing the risk to residents today.

Transcript

00:00 I'm in the town of Tujay where there's a bushfire burning out of control to the west of the

00:06 town.

00:07 Now, we've got two emergency warnings in place in Western Australia at the moment.

00:11 The other is in the shire of Manjimup.

00:14 That's about 350 kilometres south of Perth.

00:17 Now here in Tujay, people in the affected areas are being told that it is in fact too

00:23 late to leave.

00:24 If you are south of Joolamar Road, it's too late to leave and you need to shelter inside

00:28 your home.

00:30 Now the Tujay fire is currently stationary but we have strong gusty winds predicted and

00:35 there is very hot weather on the way so because of these conditions, authorities are concerned

00:41 that there could be flare-ups.

00:42 So people are still being told they cannot return to their homes.

00:46 I spoke to a woman who was forced to flee her home yesterday as the fire broke out.

00:50 Here's a bit of what she had to say.

00:52 I was actually on my way back from Perth and got a phone call to say, "Have you heard about

01:01 the fire?"

01:02 And obviously then it was just sheer panic because I hadn't at that time.

01:08 So yeah, it was just a sheer panic to try and get home to see how things were.

01:14 Planes and helicopters flying around and I could see the smoke from our property.

01:23 So it was just a sheer panic to try and grab the dogs and get out basically.

01:30 We know at the moment that our property hasn't been affected but with the way the wind is

01:37 out there at the moment, it's still quite dodgy.

01:43 We did have a fire burning out of control in the town of Lancelin.

01:46 Now that's about an hour's drive north of Perth.

01:50 Overnight residents were actually cut off from being able to leave because there's only

01:54 one road going in and out of town and it's a coastal town.

01:58 So instead they were told to head to the beach in order to shelter from the flames.

02:03 Now happily overnight that fire has been downgraded.

02:07 It's under control but again authorities are warning people to stay alert because of the

02:12 hot and dusty conditions in the area.

02:17 And we finally have a third bushfire as I mentioned in the shire of Manjibup.

02:21 Now that was only upgraded this morning from a watch and act to an emergency warning.

02:27 Residents are being told that they need to stay alert and also in some areas leave.

02:31 [BLANK_AUDIO]