Fire sparks

By Kelly Yates
A FIRE in two air conditioning units forced shoppers and movie-goers to be evacuated from Westfield Fountain Gate last Friday afternoon.
Crowds of people in the shopping centre and at Village Cinemas were evacuated from the popular Narre Warren complex just after 1pm.
Narre Warren Fire Brigade captain Paul Hardy said on the way to the fire, they could see a “large column of black smoke” coming from the roof of the building.
“At this stage more appliances where called for, due to the large life risk inside the building,” he said.
Captain Hardy said they had about 14 fire trucks at the centre.
Firefighters from Hallam and Narre Warren donned breathing apparatus and sourced a water supply, while waiting for the Dandenong ladder platform to arrive.
Police blocked off several roads leading to the shopping centre.
Captain Hardy said firefighters found the fire after working their way up through a maze of access hatches to the roof.
“Once on the roof it was found that two large air conditioning units were on fire,” he said.
“Crews worked quickly to contain the fire, and there were concerns that the fire had dropped down into the shops below. In one shop below the fire, the sprinkler system activated causing large amounts of water damage.”
It took firefighters 10 minutes to contain the fire in the air conditioning units, and another 20 minutes to completely extinguish the blaze.