A man has been charged with assaulting two police officers at the scene of a major house fire in Sydney’s west in the early hours of Saturday morning.
Emergency services were called to Shepherd Street in St Marys, 47 kilometers west of the CBD, at around 3.15am to reports that a house was engulfed in flames.
Fire and Rescue NSW (FRNSW) crews arrived to find the single-storey weatherboard house well lit.
Although they finally managed to put out the fire, the house was destroyed.
A 66-year-old man and his 40-year-old daughter escaped unharmed, but a 38-year-old man was arrested after trying to enter the burning house and allegedly assaulting two officers.
A man has been charged with assaulting two police officers at the scene of a large house fire (pictured) in Sydney’s west in the early hours of Saturday morning.
A local police officer and a handler from the canine unit tried to prevent one of the occupants from returning inside and a neighbor tried to intervene.
The occupant then allegedly assaulted officers and was arrested and taken to St Marys Police Station where he was charged with two counts of police assault and one count of resisting/obstructing police.
He was refused bail to appear at Parramatta Bail Court on Saturday.
‘My partner woke me up and the house was on fire. It just completely disappeared,’ a neighbor told the Today show on Saturday morning.
‘And then, we went to the side to go in and see if (the female occupant) was still there. And then she ran out the back door with the dog.
Inspector Kernin Lambert, FRNSW incident controller, said it was a “hugely challenging” fire for crews, with flames “at least 20 metres” coming from the roof.
“The fire was so intense when the first trucks stopped, the glass windows of the house next door exploded and this one also started to catch fire,” he said.
Some items in the house including gas cylinders, flammable liquids and several vehicles on the property. They are believed to have contributed to the ferocity of the fire.
Firefighters remained on scene Saturday extinguishing spot fires.
Investigators have not yet been able to enter the destroyed home to determine the cause.
‘My partner woke me up and the house was on fire. It just completely disappeared,” a neighbor (pictured) told the Today show on Saturday morning.
