Residents whose homes were razed in the path of a destructive quick-moving bushfire have spoken of the shock and devastation of losing all their possessions, just four days before Christmas.
It took just minutes for flames to engulf at least three homes in the Perth hills community of Parkerville on Thursday morning after a tree fell onto live powerlines on a hot and windy day, with two of them razed.
Julie Moody was at work when her phone started filling up with notifications about the danger in her neighbourhood.
"My alert app kept dinging, so I decided to check my wi-fi cameras and saw my dogs were wandering around with lots and lots of smoke," she said.
In a matter of minutes, her home was overwhelmed by fire.
"There aren't any words to describe the feeling, " she said.
"[We've been here] 17 years pretty much to the day today. Our son had his 17th birthday the day before the fire.
"All his presents. Everything is gone. Christmas presents, they're gone. It's pretty devastating."
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Ms Moody's partner Craig said he tried to return to the home as the fire was declared an emergency warning.
"I was just trying to get the dogs. I wasn't worried about anything else. The driveway was all in flames," he said.
"I went around through [a neighbouring] property and came in through the fence. The fire brigade was in there, so I came and got the dogs."
Ms Moody said she was at a loss about what to do next.
"Nobody really knows what you need until you go through and assess your life. We don't know what we need," she said.
"It's really hard to know in this moment. I'm sure in the coming days it'll become more clear."
She said the people in her neighbourhood, about 30 kilometres east of Perth, had been very supportive.
"The firies as usual did an amazing job. Unfortunately it went so fast they couldn't get here in time," she said.
Parkerville resident Pamela Jackson, who lives down the road from the the Moodys, was thankful her home was untouched.
But she said the street she lives on has been scorched black.
"It just bring back the Parkerville fires ten years ago – it brings back the thought of that," she said, referring to a 2014 bushfire that destroyed 57 houses.
"It makes you very much aware how things can change in a matter of minutes, becoming life threatening."
Premier Roger Cook toured the fire ground at Parkerville on Friday morning and said it was "heartbreaking and distressing" to hear of the property losses.
"On behalf of the people of Western Australia, I want you to know that our hearts are with you," he said.
"Right around the state, we are thinking of you today and your loss."
The Parkerville blaze was just one of five emergency bushfires that wreaked havoc in southern WA over the past two days.
Three other bushfires in Lancelin, Bunbury, Toodyay and Northcliffe were serious enough to warrant an emergency warning, the Department of Fire and Emergency Services' (DFES) most serious alert level.
Five people were injured in Toodyay, about an hour north east of Perth, when a fire truck responding to the blaze rolled over.
Two men in their 60s were taken to hospital after being hurt in separate incidents in the Parkerville fireground, with one man treated for minor burns and the other for a foot injury.
DFES duty assistant commissioner Rick Curtis said conditions on Thursday night had raised hopes the all-clear would be given in Parkerville sometime on Friday.
"The fire is stationary. We've been able to contain and control it," he told ABC Radio Perth.
"I suspect the good work of crews will see that [watch and act alert] downgraded today."
He praised firefighters for their work to avoid a repeat of the 2014 disaster.
"[It] was such an extreme fire behaviour event. A really hard and fast run of fire," he said.
Authorities said the full extent of the damage was expected to be made more clear on Friday, but was unlikely to rise significantly.
Two other fires in WA's south west stretched resources on Thursday.
A flare-up of a fire burning in Eaton, near the port city of Bunbury, closed the main highway linking Perth to the Margaret River and Busselton tourism region during the first full week of school holidays.
Eaton resident Chris Bowers said smoke from the blaze had poured into their backyard.
"My anxiety was a bit high because I never expected it to be that close to our house," he said.
"Being a volunteer [firefighter] in New Zealand a few years ago, I sort of know what it's about. I've fought bushfires or hedge fires and small structural fires, but nothing to this extent."
The other southern fire, north-west of Northcliffe in the Shire of Manjimup, remains at a watch and act level.
The blaze is not far away from a large and intense bushfire in Northcliffe that burnt through 95,000 hectares and impacted rural properties in 2015.
Local resident Pauline Hewitt said her community was "super aware" of the danger of fires following that disaster.
She lives about eight kilometres from the fire ground and said she would be keeping a close eye on the situation over Christmas.
"Everybody's concerned, everybody's plugged in, no matter what side of town," she said.
"We all need to really keep on our toes. These fires took off quickly, there's fire all around us really and with a lot of tourists coming in … we've really got to be careful and let anyone who visits know that we've got to watch out.
"It's not like a little fire that gets away — if it gets away here it can take out hundreds of thousands of hectares."
Visit Emergency WA, call DFES on 133 337, follow DFES on Twitter or listen to ABC Local Radio to stay up to date.
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