What’s left of a Rockingham fire truck, worth about $1 million, destroyed in the Yarloop fires.
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The fire began with a lightning strike on Wednesday and now has a perimeter of more than 226 kilometres.
The bushfire continues to threaten other beef producing Western Australian towns, emergency workers said.
Reports said an evacuation center was hit by lightning in town, cutting power and injuring a guy in his 50s.
The massive Western Australian bushfire that has raged for five days and claimed two lives has been contained but not controlled, the Department of Fire and Emergency Services (DFES) says, as some evacuees are allowed to return home.
Fire authorities have been forced to defend their actions after a “full-on war with mother nature” in Western Australia’s southwest that destroyed 143 structures and killed two people.
An estimated 24,490 hectares of agricultural land has been affected by the fires.
Local media said as much as one-third of the town of Yarloop had been destroyed, including historic buildings dating back to the late 1800s.
“The fire has been very unpredictable and has been fanned by huge wind gusts with very little drop in temperature”.
Nearly 100 people were evacuated from Yarloop by air and road after flames tore through the town, but 16 refused to budge, including Yarloop Bowling Club president Ron Sackville, who successfully defended his home.
“It is still a cause for concern”, Fire and Emergency Services Commissioner Wayne Gregson told reporters of the blaze.
“You’ve got seasoned firefighters who’ve been around for many years saying they’ve never seen anything like it”, local politician Murray Cowper told the BBC. “In the fullness of time, hopefully, we are going to account for them”.
“Everyone is upset, they can’t comprehend it. I can’t until I stand in front of it and actually see it”, she said.
Thunderstorm systems could also be generated within the fire itself, the spokesman said.
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There will be a review into the bushfire, which has burned more than 70,000ha, he said.
