WYNDHAM firefighters were kept busy last year, with the municipality recording the highest number of residential fires in the region.
There were 89 house fires across Wyndham, 31 more than Hume, which recorded the northern and western metropolitan region’s second-highest total.
This comes as a Point Cook family was forced to flee their home on Sunday night following a garage fire and gas explosion.
The explosion happened about 10.30pm and blew out the sides of the garage, sending a neighbour’s washing line 20 metres through the air. The explosion was heard at least 500 metres away.
The family managed to escape unharmed after putting its fire plan into action.
Werribee CFA captain Michael Wells urged people to review their home fire plans before winter.
He said residential fires continued to keep CFA crews busy.
“[Residential fires] can be very damaging to property and life.
“There is a bigger risk at this time of year as people start to use electric blankets and ducted heating that haven’t been used for 12 months.”
Two of the municipality’s biggest house fires last year were in Point Cook and Wyndham Vale.
In May, a Point Cook house was destroyed, and in September a fire in the roof of a Wyndham Vale house caused more than $150,000 damage. Mr Wells said there were also a number of large-scale fires, including the Glen Devon Primary School fire in November.
Firefighters were also called to a blaze at a two-storey building in Watton Street in June which took 90 minutes to control.
But Mr Wells said the bulk of the work for Wyndham’s fireys remained non-structural blazes such as grass, car and rubbish fires.
He estimated that Werribee CFA attended 850 jobs a year, with Hoppers Crossing called to more than 1200 incidents and Point Cook attending about 300.
“It has been a busy 12 months but that relates to the growth in Wyndham. As more people come in, our calls will go up.”
