ESPERANCE is swathed in smoke and the town is facing a fresh bushfire emergency as fire crews battle to contain a flare up in bushland to the east at Merivale.
The Esperance Civic Centre was reopened as an emergency evacuation centre just before midday Saturday.
And a Department of Fire and Emergency Services alert was upgraded from a “watch and act” to an “emergency warning”, with people living in the Mullet Lakes and Bandy Creek areas urged to flee their homes to a safer place.
It comes in the wake of a horrendous week of blazes, the worst in farming communities to the north of Esperance that claimed four lives and destroyed at least two homes.
Fire crews spent the morning mopping up and strengthening containment lines but the new flare up means they have been sent back to the fire front.
Aerial water bombers have also been deployed to battle the “out of control” and “unpredictable” blaze.
However, DFES Superintendent Craig Waters said he expected the fire to be brought back under control today and that it would not threaten the Esperance townsite.
More than 200 firefighters and 100 pastoralists have been fighting fires across the Shire of Esperance, with advice alerts also in place for Salmon Gums and Grass Patch to the north of the coastal town and the Thomas River-Poison Creek area of Cape Arid National Park to the east.
There is also a severe fire warning for parts of the Pilbara, the Goldfields Midlands and Midwest Gascoyne with the Bureau of Meteorology forecasting hot, dry and windy conditions.
The Salmon Gums and Grass Patch fire left four people dead, including local farmer Kym Curnow, who was hailed as a hero for saving several people from driving into the inferno before becoming trapped himself.
Norwegian national Anna Sashohova Winther, 29, British man Thomas Leslie Butcher, 31, and German woman Julia Kohrs-Lichte, 19, also died trying to outrun the fire.
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