Emergency services have credited the tireless work of career and volunteer firefighters — along with some much-needed and timely rain — with bringing under control two enormous and out-of-control bushfires raging in Western Australia's Great Southern region.
Premier Mark McGowan toured properties near Albany on Saturday afternoon where dozens of large fires had been burning dangerously close to homes.
He met with exhausted fire crews who were thankful to be mopping up after rain arrived on Friday evening and helped to pacify two of the largest blazes.
One fire tore through Redmond, just west of Albany, where dozens of residents were forced to flee on Thursday night as 100km-an-hour winds whipped up an inferno.
Another was near the Stirling Range to Albany's north-east, which burned through more than 17,000 hectares, destroyed a family home, and killed a number of livestock.
That fire was the result of a Department of Parks and Wildlife prescribed burn which escaped containment lines when strong winds hit.
The Premier said a full and thorough review would be undertaken into the cause of the fires at the right time.
He said for now though the focus remained on assisting and thanking the hundreds of people who helped out over the weekend.
"We're very fortunate no one has been killed, [and] we're very fortunate no one has been seriously injured," he said.
"We're actually fortunate there hasn't been more loss of property over the course of the last few days.
"I put that down to the different levels of firefighting working together so effectively, in these extreme circumstances.
"We did lose livestock and we did lose property, but at this stage that's been very, very limited."
Albany Mayor Dennis Wellington echoed that sentiment and said he could not believe how quickly they had been able to tackle the fires, which he believed could easily have been far more catastrophic.
"The result has been much, much better than we could have hoped for and we continue to learn from it," he said.
"The speed of the turnaround has been absolutely fantastic.
"We were looking at still being here on Monday morning doing the clean-up, the fact that we're doing it Saturday morning is amazing and that's I guess testament to how the weather can control things."
