Dozens of firefighters battle blaze in Melbourne’s northwest

ABC NEWS (Australia)

Firefighters say a suspicious blaze that destroyed a factory in Melbourne's north this morning came close to spreading to neighbouring businesses. Police say a car was driven into the factory and set alight.

Transcript

00:00Fire crews are still dousing hotspots after this blaze here at this factory on Barry Road

00:08in Tullamarine, which is about 14 kilometres northwest of Melbourne's CBD.

00:14Now police say that a car was deliberately driven into the front of this premises and

00:20then set alight and luckily no one was inside as the flames very rapidly took hold and Fire

00:27Rescue Victoria says by the time fire crews arrived here, just seven minutes after receiving

00:34triple zero calls, this building was already fully engulfed in flames.

00:40Now this is a car detailing business and Fire Commander John Zuccarelli says that around

00:4680 firefighters and 25 appliances that were here worked very hard to stop these flames

00:53spreading to adjoining buildings.

00:56The fire was through the roof, which to us indicates that the fuel loading is reasonable

01:02inside.

01:03The biggest hazard that we have is the actual structure collapse, the design of the building.

01:07The fire has been contained, however structurally it has had some damage, which means we've

01:13got a 12 metre exclusion zone that is currently where the firefighters are working.

01:19It took fire crews more than an hour to bring this blaze under control.

01:23They also had to cut gas and also electrical connection with big power lines along Barrie Road.

01:31Now we know that this has gutted the entire 350 square metre building and this also caused

01:40a lot of headaches for people around the area with smoke alerts being issued in a two kilometre

01:46radius as well as these roads being blocked to traffic with early morning workers not

01:53able to get into this very busy industrial area.

01:57Police say that this does remain suspicious and they are going to have an arson chemist

02:02come along to try to pinpoint exactly what was used to start this blaze.

02:08They're asking for anyone with information who witnessed it or who has dash cam footage

02:14to contact them.

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