Wildfire burns 35 houses in Western Australia

PERTH, Australia — Wildfires tore across the outskirts of an Australian city on Sunday, destroying at least 35 homes, authorities said. One firefighter was reportedly injured.

Two fires fanned by hot summer winds were burning in forested areas to the north and southeast of Perth in Western Australia state, the Fire and Emergency Services Authority said.

At Roleystone and the nearby community of Kelmscott, residents were told to evacuate from the path of a fire that erupted after noon and had claimed 35 homes and was threatening more, the authority said.

“There is a threat to lives and homes. You are in danger and need to act immediately to survive,” it said in a warning statement. It said people should leave immediately if they believe the path is clear, otherwise they should dig in and be prepared to take shelter in their homes.

Police closed roads leading to threatened areas, preventing residents who were not at home when the fire flared from returning because it was too dangerous.

The fires were expected to burn through Sunday night, and shelters were set up for hundreds of people fleeing their homes.

“When the phone rang and they said, ’Get out’, we got out,” said David Locke, a retiree who went to the shelter at Roleystone with his wife Carole and their cat Daisy.

Television news showed a fire front raging and several houses burned to the ground in the area, a hilly region where houses are nestled among trees on large blocks of land. Helicopters dumped loads of water on the flames from the air.

Authority spokesman Rick Tyers said the fire had scorched almost 1,000 acres (400 hectares) by Sunday evening, and that strong winds and huge plumes of smoke were making firefighting very difficult.

The Australian Broadcasting Corp. reported that one firefighter was taken to a hospital, possibly after being hit by a firefighting vehicle. Details could not immediately be confirmed.

Further north, in the Swan Valley district, some 150 firefighters using water-bombing helicopters and trucks were battling another wildfire.

About 100 people were told to evacuate their homes as authorities tried to contain the blaze, which started Saturday night and had scorched about 2,000 acres (800 hectares) of forest land by Sunday.

The cause of Sunday’s fires was not immediately known.

The fires in Australia’s far west come as huge areas of the east coast recover from a huge cyclone that struck in Queensland state last week and from flooding from drenching rains in Queensland and in southern Victoria state.

February is the last month of summer in Australia and also marks the height of both the monsoon season in the tropical north and the riskiest period for wildfires. Sunday’s fires come almost a year to the day since wildfires ripped across Victoria, killing 173 people and razing 2,000 homes in the country’s worst fire disaster.