Hunt for arsonists in city’s night of flames

Hamish Heard
Flames have besieged Geelong after suspected arsonists combined with howling wind and drought conditions to burn two houses and more than 300 hectares of grassland.
A grassfire broke out at a Moolap flower farm shortly after 4pm on Wednesday and had burnt up to 400 hectares near Reedy Lake and the Barwon River by the early hours of yesterday.
Geelong Fire Brigade handed the task of controlling the fire to Parks Victoria at 8pm on Wednesday but rejoined the fight after increasing wind and difficult access hampered efforts to extinguish the blaze.
Geelong Fire Brigade fire officer Brad McRobb said investigators were yesterday trying to determine the cause of the blaze.
Seventeen-year-old CFA volunteer Connor Ingram watched as the flames drew perilously close to his home in Moolap’s Calder Street.
“As a CFA volunteer you get used to fire but if it came much closer the s..t would have really hit the fan,” he said.
Mr Ingram believed the fire was “probably” the work of arsonists.
“I dare say someone has gone and intentionally lit it,” he said.
While talking to the Independ-ent, news came through on his hand-held radio that Belmont fire crews had rushed to a second grass and scrub fire off Torquay Road near Grovedale.
Mr Ingram said recent CFA soil moisture tests had found that the driest winter in more than 20 years had left the ground extremely dry.
“It’s definitely unusual to have a grass fire take hold like this in the middle of winter,” he said.
Meanwhile, Geelong Police Chief Inspector Wayne Carson was yesterday confident officers would soon arrest an arsonist over a string of house fires in the northern suburbs.
Two houses went up in flames on Wednesday and Thursday morning in the latest outbreak of suspicious fires in the area.
“We have a number of suspects, some of particular interest, and we’re certainly confident an arrest will be made fairly soon,” Insp Carson said.
Police called fire crews to an unoccupied house in Pettitt Crescent, Norlane, after finding the building “well-ablaze” during a routine patrol at 3.30am yesterday morning.
The fire was 24 hours after a vacant house in Plume Street went up in flames for the fourth time in the past three years.
In 2004 the Independent rep-orted calls to have the house demolished. Residents claimed squatters who frequented the house and local children who used it as a playground had turn-ed the property into a fire trap.
The house’s owner was yesterday demolishing the remains of the building.