At 2:40 pm on Tuesday 26^th of January 2016, police were alerted to a vegetation fire on a property at Drummond Street in Perth. At 2:50 pm police arrived at the scene and confirmed a large vegetation fire was burning in a northerly direction, threatening farm land and houses in the Napoleon Street area of the Perth Township.

The fire took hold of large area of low lying bushland and gorse in a paddock to the west of Napoleon Street and forced the evacuation of 3 houses for safety precautions. An estimated area of approximately 2-3 hectares of farm land was burnt, along with damage to a number of wooden live stock structures and fencing, prior to the fire being contained and extinguished by members of the Tasmania Fire Service.

Extensive resources from both the Tasmania Fire Service and Tasmania Police were required to effectively manage the incident. This included the deployment and use of 3 helicopters, 17 fire trucks, and 20 police personnel. During the attempts to extinguish the fire a 25yr old volunteer firefighter was taken to the Launceston General hospital for treatment of heat exhaustion and smoke inhalation.

A 62 yr old man from Perth has been charged in relation to using machinery in contravention of total fire ban conditions. He will appear in court at a later date.

Any information received by Tasmania Police indicating contravention of fire restrictions will be investigated with a view to charging those responsible. This incident is a timely reminder that a statewide fire ban exists until 11.59pm on 26th January.