Western Australia’s fire season is being reshaped not only by heat and lightning, but by a sharp rise in suspicious blazes that are stretching volunteer brigades, complicating risk assessments and sharpening questions about liability across regional communities.
Emergency authorities in the state’s South West recorded 20 suspicious or deliberately lit fires in December 2025, up from seven over the same month a year earlier, according to the Department of Fire and Emergency Services (DFES). Across WA, 184 fires were investigated over the Christmas period, underscoring the intensity of the season.
For insurers and brokers, the numbers point to a more complex threat profile: a mix of arson, negligence, extreme temperatures and large landscape fires that together increase the likelihood of both property damage and business interruption claims.
The coal and power town of Collie, about 200 kilometres south of Perth, has become one of the focal points of concern. Local police have examined 17 suspiciously lit fires since the end of October, with DFES confirming a total of 18 incidents under investigation in the district since the start of summer.
One blaze on 16 January escalated rapidly to an emergency-level bushfire, drawing in crews from 10 volunteer brigades. Authorities say such fires, when lit in hot, dry conditions, can quickly move beyond the capacity of local responders.
Collie Police Station officer in charge, Senior Sergeant Darryl Noye, told the ABC investigators had been “inundated” with fire inquiries this season, requiring significant resourcing. He linked the rise in incidents to a combination of holidaymakers, campgrounds at capacity and people ignoring or misunderstanding fire bans.
“With tourists, all of the campgrounds where people can go and set up their tent or park their caravan … that's going to lead to a number of campfires, whether there's a fire ban in place or not,” he said.
“They certainly overestimate their ability to control a fire in the bush.”
Adding to the complexity, Noye said more people were living rough in bushland around the shire as cost-of-living pressures and housing shortages bite.
“The cost of living and lack of housing has had a big impact on the lifestyle that people are being forced to choose,” he said. “We've got a number of homeless that are displaced either from Collie or from other areas that are now residing in bushland locations.”
For insurers, those comments speak to an emerging social risk factor: informal or unmanaged occupation of high-fuel areas near towns, where cooking or heating fires can escape and where responsibility for loss may be difficult to apportion.
Further east, anxiety is also rising in smaller communities that have narrowly avoided disaster.
On 4 January, a bushfire near McAlinden, Bowelling and Cardiff – roughly 230 kilometres south-east of Perth – triggered an emergency warning, forcing residents to enact bushfire plans or shelter in place. The Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions initially treated the blaze as suspicious before police ruled out arson and recorded the cause as unknown.
From an underwriting perspective, such “near misses” are a leading indicator of deteriorating risk quality in semi-rural and lifestyle blocks, where tree cover, hobby farming and limited access routes can all heighten loss potential. Even when houses are spared, smoke damage, fencing loss, livestock impacts and evacuation costs can generate claim activity.
The rise in suspicious fires comes amid a severe heatwave, with the Bureau of Meteorology warning of temperatures above 45 degrees in some inland areas and multiple 40-degree days forecast for Perth.
Extreme heat tightens the window between ignition and escalation. Campfires left smouldering, deliberate lighting in bushland or sparks from vehicles can move quickly into crown fires or fast-running grassfires, giving fire crews and residents little time to respond.
The heat is also exposing secondary vulnerabilities that matter to the insurance sector. Runway temperature limits can force airlines servicing Perth, Geraldton and remote airstrips to impose weight restrictions or delays, disrupting fly-in, fly-out rosters for resource projects. Highways that link mine sites and agricultural hubs to regional centres may be closed as asphalt softens or as fire fronts threaten corridors.
Employers have been urged to adjust rosters, reschedule non-essential outdoor work and ensure evacuation plans are ready if flames threaten. The Western Australian Health Department has recommended that workplaces in affected areas secure additional potable water, confirm that accommodation has backup power for air-conditioning, and reinforce heat-safety guidance with staff.
For insurers, this combination of heat stress and fire risk elevates duty-of-care considerations for organisations operating remote camps, regional depots and mobile workforces. Failure to adapt operations to official warnings can expose companies not only to workers’ compensation and liability exposures but also to reputational damage.
While many of the suspicious fires in the South West have been contained, WA has simultaneously been dealing with large natural ignitions that show what can happen when conditions align.
Near Dunn Rock in the Shire of Lake Grace, a lightning strike in mallee scrub at 4.24pm on a Friday has grown into a massive blaze burning through 37,067 hectares of scrub and farmland. The fire has shifted direction with changing winds, remaining uncontrolled and uncontained after four days.
Watch-and-act warnings have covered an area stretching across Newdegate-Ravensthorpe Road, Old Newdegate Road, Millsteed Road, Mallee Road, Taylor Road and Tarco Road in parts of Dunn Rock and Lake King, as authorities warn there is a possible threat to lives and homes.
More than 50 firefighters and 20 appliances, including volunteer brigades and farmer response units, have been on the ground, supported by Parks and Wildlife Service incident controllers, local government officers and aerial resources. Power has been cut to several customers in affected localities, with restoration dependent on fire behaviour and access.
Although this particular incident was not deliberately lit, it demonstrates the environment into which suspicious ignitions are now occurring: parched fuels, shifting winds and long distances between towns. Each new fire – whether malicious, careless or natural – risks intersecting with an already stretched emergency response.
The strain on WA volunteers echoes debates in other states about fire service funding and sustainability. In Victoria, the Country Fire Authority recently reported another operating deficit and highlighted that about 28 per cent of its operational fleet has been funded by brigades rather than government grants. Many brigades manage modest balances and rely on years of fundraising for critical equipment.
While Western Australia’s funding arrangements differ, insurers are increasingly sensitive to how resourcing and governance influence real-world risk. Where volunteer brigades are responsible for large, dispersed territories – and where suspicious fires demand intensive police investigations as well as suppression – response times and the capacity to handle multiple events become central to loss modelling.
DFES Deputy Commissioner of Operations Craig Waters has warned that those who disregard fire bans are “reckless”. “It only takes one deliberately lit bushfire to have a devastating consequence,” he said. “And a profound, long-lasting impact on communities.”
For an insurance audience, the surge in suspicious fires in WA is more than a public-order problem; it is a signal of shifting risk fundamentals. Key implications include:
Brokers and underwriters with significant exposure in Western Australia may now look to refine bushfire scoring to explicitly factor recent patterns of suspicious activity, not just historical burn footprints. Client discussions are likely to place greater emphasis on enforcement of fire bans on private property and campgrounds, visitor management, local brigade capability and access constraints.
The current summer in WA suggests that the most dangerous fires may not only be those driven by weather and fuel, but those lit – deliberately or carelessly – in places and at times when the system is least able to absorb them. For insurers, that means paying closer attention to human behaviour as a primary driver of loss, not a secondary footnote to climate and geography.
