UPDATE: 10am
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Bunnings Warrnambool is donating a new fire extinguisher to replace the one which was used to help save a home from fire on Tuesday night.
Warrnambool CFA station officer Mick Prendergast said the man had recently purchased the extinguisher which had helped limit the damage to the Crawley Street home.
EARLIER:
QUICK action by a resident saved a home in Warrnambool's Crawley Street from extensive damage on Tuesday evening.
Warrnambool fire brigade senior station officer David Ferguson said a fire in a clothes dryer at Warrnambool and an ammonia leak at a Cobden milk factory kept firefighters busy.
He said about 7.20pm the brigade was alerted to a fire in the laundry of a west Warrnambool home.
"When firefighters arrived they found that a clothes dryer had caught fire in the laundry," he said.
"Quick action by the occupants averted major disaster; as the mother of the young family ushered their young son out of the house the man attacked the fire with a dry chemical fire extinguisher that they had bought for just such an event."
Officer Ferguson said the quick action limited the damage to just the dryer, some clothes and the lino floor of the laundry.
"There was also smoke damage. Staff and volunteers of the brigade worked together to ensure that the fire had not spread beyond the area of origin, to ventilate the smoke from the house and to clean up the debris and residual dry powder," he said.
"Firefighters then investigated the cause of the fire, which appeared to be a mechanical fault with the dryer.
"The occupants had been doing the right thing by cleaning the lint filter and operating the dryer correctly."
Officer Ferguson said buying the fire extinguisher and being brave enough to use it saved the house from extensive damage.
He said that about the same time Warrnambool firefighters headed to Cobden to assist the local brigade deal with an ammonia leak at the Fonterra Milk plant.
"A team of six staff and volunteers responded from Warrnambool in the Brigade’s specialist Hazmat appliance and a ute," he said.
"More than 100 people were evacuated from the factory. The responding brigades, including Cobden, Warrnambool, Colac and Bostocks Creek units, used chemical gas suits and an ammonia detector to determine the source of the leak," he said.