Volunteer firefighters praised for preventing spread of Kirup truck fire

Fast-acting volunteers prevented a truck fire from spreading into nearby land in Kirup on Sunday.

Crews from Kirup, Donnybrook and Bridgetown worked together to ensure damage was minimal after a B-Double truck travelling through the South West town went up in flames.

Just before 3pm the driver of the truck noticed fire coming from under the bonnet before he pulled into a rest bay on the South Western Highway 400m south of Capel Street.

A passing vehicle carried him away from the scene uninjured as the alarm was raised.

Members from the Kirup Volunteer Bush Fire Brigade arrived shortly after and a Donnybrook Volunteer Fire and Rescue Service crew was on the scene at 3.16pm.

Donnybrook captain Ben Anderson said his crew had extinguished the main fire by 4pm and then spent an hour doing salvage before leaving the scene.

“That hour was spent tidying up because there was some pallets still burning and there was some other hot spots,” he said.

“The metal of the turntable on the back of the truck was white hot which took us about 45 minutes to cool down.”

The Kirup crew extinguished small fires in neighbouring land while the Donnybrook crew worked on the truck.

Donnybrook police Sen. Const. Darren Brown said 100sq m of bush burned around the truck.

“The truck was delivering empty food bins through to Manjimup,” he said. “It completely destroyed the prime mover and the truck.”

The truck engine had recently been refitted, according to the owner, and Sen. Const. Brown said there was no need for a criminal investigation.

“We are fairly certain the cause was either mechanical or electrical,” he said.

“We’ll probably never know because the cab was completely destroyed — there is certainly no investigations in term of arson or negligent driving.

“He was just driving along and the truck caught fire for whatever reason.”