Following the disruption of around 100 establishments in West Australia’s South West region, more than 200 firefighters have been assigned the task of providing protection to people and establishments.

The bushfire that began near Waroona earlier is now gradually moving towards south, disrupting the small town of Yarloop on Wednesday. It had burnt an area covering more than 67,000 hectares. The fire is moving towards several other towns, including Harvey that is under major threat as the wind is fanning the fire with a perimeter stretching over 220 kilometres.

The Department of Fire and Emergency Services confirmed that the bushfire was about to reach Harvey and is just five kilometres away. On Friday morning the pace of the bushfire was down to 100 metres per hour. The emergency services said that people who require going out should leave houses in a southerly direction in case the way was clear.

In addition to Harvey, Hamel, Myalup, Lake Clifton, Pamelup Estate, Cookenup, Preston Beach, etc. have also been given emergency warning after Waroona and Yarloop. The residents in the warned areas have been told not to leave homes as it would not be safe.

Yarloop was caught in bushfire on Wednesday night and continued on Thursday night when police reported that three people were missing with around 100 homes destroyed. However, the three people who were missing were found on Friday. The residents who were affected by loss of houses moved to an evacuation centre in Pinjarra on Thursday night, ABC reports.

Another place decided for evacuating the disrupted individuals was at Australind. No serious injuries were still reported though. The emergency services stated that 100 people remained stranded on Preston Beach as they did not find place to evacuate,.

According to an ABC report, Greg Mair, incident controller at the Department of Fire and Emergency Services, has addressed a crowd of around 600 people at the Australind evacuation centre. He said that the bushfire has chances to continue towards the south-west region, hitting Myalup, thereby reaching Binningup, north of Bunbury.

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