‘God, I hope it’s not mine’: Geraldton man describes moment he found out his house had burnt down

A West Australian man has described feeling helpless as he watched on from behind road blocks while his home was destroyed by an out-of-control bushfire on Monday.

More than 200 firefighters worked throughout the weekend and Monday to control fires raging through the town of Geraldton, about five hours drive north of Perth.

Fires in the Mid West region have been downgraded as conditions ease, and emergency services are assessing the damage.

Nick Morgan spoke to ABC Radio on Tuesday morning, and said he first became aware of the blaze when he was out of town.

“I was about an hour’s drive south, and I got a call saying that a fire emergency had erupted,” he said.

“I thought ‘this is bad’, so I headed back to town.

“By the time I got back everything was locked down. I couldn’t even get to my home. I couldn’t even go in and help fight or get stuff out.”

Tragically, Morgan said his pet cat was trapped inside when the fire engulfed his home.

He said the moment he found out his home was gone on Monday morning was “devastating”.

“We were listening to the radio ... there was a caller that mentioned that somebody [on my street] had lost their home because the fire had got into a palm tree.

“I thought, ‘my place has got palm trees. God, I hope it’s not mine.’

“Sometime a little bit after, the phone was ringing, the police were trying to contact me, the shire was trying to contact me, and they confirmed that my place was the one that had gone up.

“It’s a mixture of shock, disbelief, nothing sort of really sunk in at the moment. It’s totally gone. It’s destroyed. There’s nothing much that can be saved out of it.”

Morgan’s home was the only property lost in the blaze, with firefighters managing to save another 600 from the path of the fire.

Bushfire alerts remain in place for the Geraldton suburbs and wider regions of Bluff Point, Spalding, Sunset Beach, Waggrakine and Moresby.

The arson squad, Department of Fire and Emergency Service investigators and Geraldton detectives are all investigating the blazes, which are believed to have been deliberately lit.

Waggrakine Primary School remains closed as a precaution.

Evacuation centres at QEII Seniors and Community Centre and Northam Recreation Centre have been closed.

While Tuesday’s fire danger rating remains high, firefighters said they were able to control the fires and have reopened the roads to traffic.

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