A man has been charged with assaulting two police officers at the scene of a large 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 had been engulfed in flames.
Fire and Rescue NSW (FRNSW) crews arrived to find the single-storey house well alight.
Although they were eventually able to put out the fire, the house was destroyed.
A 66-year-old man and his 40-year-old daughter escaped unhurt, but a 38-year-old man was arrested after trying to enter the burning house and assaulting two police officers.
A man has been charged with assaulting two police officers at the scene of a major 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 attempted to prevent one of the occupants from going inside and a neighbor attempted to intervene.
The occupant then allegedly assaulted the officers and was arrested and taken to St Marys Police Station, where he was charged with two counts of assaulting police and one count of resisting/resisting. obstructing the police.
He was refused bail to appear in Parramatta Magistrates’ Court on Saturday.
“My partner woke me up and the house was on fire. It was just completely gone,” a neighbor told the Today show Saturday morning.
“And then we went to the side to go in and see if (the occupant) was still there. And then she ran out the back door with the dog.
FRNSW incident controller Inspector Kernin Lambert said it was an “extremely challenging” fire for crews, with flames “at least 20 meters” coming from the roof.
“The fire was so intense that when the first trucks rolled up the windows of the house next door, they exploded and it also started to catch fire,” he said.
Some items in the home 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 to put out the localized fires.
Investigators have not yet been able to enter the destroyed house to determine the cause.
“My partner woke me up and the house was on fire. He was completely gone,” a neighbor (pictured) told the Today show on Saturday morning.
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