A SUSPICIOUS fire engulfed the Nangwarry Football Club’s clubrooms on Wednesday night, completely destroying the building and all the memorabilia housed inside.
Around 35 Country Fire Service volunteers were called to the sporting club on the Riddoch Highway at around 11.30pm and arrived to find the premises well ablaze.
It took firefighters more than two and a half hours to fully contain the fire, with the damage bill estimated to be around $500,000.
“We had seven fire units attend and the last truck did not leave until around 5am,” Wattle Range CFS group officer Fred Stent said.
“Being a weatherboard structure, it was a well-developed fire and was totally destroyed, but we managed to stop it spreading to the change rooms and other nearby structures.”
The fire is the 10th in Nangwarry in the last three years and 20th blaze since 2008.
While a cause for this fire is yet to be determined, Limestone Coast Police officer in charge Superintendent Grant Moyle said it was being treated as suspicious.
“Of those 20 fires, we can tell you that eight of them have been deliberately lit, two were undetermined and the remaining 10 were from natural causes,” Supt Moyle said.
“We are treating this fire as suspicious on the basis that a number of the fires in this area have been deliberately lit.”
Fire cause investigators arrived on the scene yesterday to comb for any clues.
Mr Stent said it would be extremely disappointing if it is found to have been deliberately lit.
“Any type of fire is unwarranted, but fires by arsonists are particularly frustrating,” Mr Stent said.
“It seems like there’s a few people who do the wrong thing in the community and they do not realise they are affecting everyone else living in it.”
Nangwarry resident Tamara Ploenges admitted the latest fire had left her scared.
“It is a scary feeling – I went to bed last night holding one of my children thinking how do I save them if my house goes up,” she said.
“I have four children living in a house that is built from the same material as the football club and I watched that go up and it did not take much.”
Those fears have prompted Supt Moyle to renew calls for anyone to come forward to the police with information about arson activity.
“We understand this is of great concern to the community … we have made pleas in the past for people with any information to come forward and I will reinforce that today,” Supt Moyle said.
“We will do what we can to investigate the cause of these fires and try to find out who is responsible for the deliberately lit fires, but we cannot do that on our own, we do rely on information from the public.”
Supt Moyle said increasing policing in the area was not the answer to catch the culprits.
“We can have patrols here frequently and we increase patrols here, but that does not necessarily mean they are going to be in the right place at the right time when someone is out committing these offences,” Supt Moyle said.
“That is why it is important for members of the community to tell us about suspicious activity or if they have any suspicions about individuals.”
Anyone who witnessed any suspicious activity in the street at that time is asked to report it online at online at crimestopperssa.com.au/ or contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.
