Plantation manager disappointed at suspicious blaze as cops offer reward for details leading to conviction

The manager of a blue gum plantation property north-east of Collie which caught alight a fortnight ago has expressed his disappointment after the suspicious blaze caused at least $630,000 damage to the site. In total the fire tore through 300ha causing $1 million damage and put parts of Collie under threat. The property is leased by forest management company Ents Forestry to a third party. “It’s very disappointing, we have a lot of fires on that property that start from the Collie River and more often it’s people camping with illegal camp fires they don’t put out and then they start burning their way through the district,” he said. “We have at least one every summer but usually more than one. “It’s land that we don’t control but the people camping there enter on the land that we lease without asking permission so it is very frustrating.” The fire began between 10pm and 1.30am on Thursday, January 11 at the intersection of Collie-Williams and Lawson roads according to authorities. Mr Wright said the efforts of firefighters were to be commended. “Support from the community is overwhelming, the support we receive is through the volunteer bushfire network, we’re very grateful for those first responders who jump on the fire, they’re the ones who are closest to it,” he said. “It’s much easier to put out the fire when it’s small so I’m very grateful to them for jumping on it in the first instance. “Then subsequently there’s quite the war machine that clicks into gear when one of these events goes beyond a couple of hours, there was a lot of support in the background for all those volunteers.” Police have made the call out for any information on the blaze, offering up to a $25,000 reward for information that leads to the identification and conviction of the arsonist. Mr Wright said the company was lucky there were options to use the damaged logs. “We’re fortunate in Bunbury in that there’s a number of salvage markets for burnt timber,” he said. “We can sell them to a number of biomass markets, export biomass is a local energy wood market where the burnt timber is chipped up and put through furnaces to generate energy. “We’re fortunate in that there’s a number of outlets for that burnt timber so we will be able to salvage a portion of that value.”