00:00Thousands of hectares scorched black.
00:05The bushfire coming perilously close to homes near the town of Wandering.
00:10With the speed the fire was moving and the intensity,
00:13no doubt it's the efforts of those crews that prevented any significant property loss
00:19occurring across this incident area.
00:21Authorities are yet to confirm how many structures were impacted,
00:24but aerial vision appears to show at least some have been destroyed.
00:29The fire was reported at lunchtime on Thursday,
00:32one of several sparked by lightning strikes.
00:35More than 150 firefighters are on the ground, supported by aerial crews.
00:41The winds expected this afternoon are going to keep those conditions a challenge
00:45for the fire crews that are on the ground and we'll have to work through that.
00:49The blaze closed Albany Highway for more than 24 hours,
00:52while South Coast Highway was also blocked due to a fire in the Fitzgerald River National Park.
00:58You can go around from New to Gate.
01:00It's a bit of a long way, but it's not bad. It's nice. Yeah.
01:04Causing problems for residents and travellers on the road ahead of the long weekend.
01:09No, we haven't heard anything. We've got no idea when it's going to be open, the road.
01:13In the state's north, residents are being urged to prepare for a cyclone,
01:17expected to cross the coast as a Category 2 system north of Derby on Saturday.
01:22We're expecting destructive wind gusts close to this system as it moves through.
01:27Also some very heavy rainfall with the potential for flooding throughout the West Kimberley.
01:32Residents are being evacuated from the remote communities of Jadagen and One Arm Point.
01:38It's the second cyclone to impact residents in less than a month.
01:41And the debris from cyclone Hayley is complicating preparations.
01:45There's going to be a little bit of destruction. We'll still see a lot of rubbish all over the place,
01:50you know, trees everywhere. Hopefully we won't see any major trees fall on houses.
01:56Hopefully we don't have any major infrastructure damage.
01:59Residents across Western Australia are facing a challenging long weekend of weather.
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