AN abandoned bowling club 15 minutes south of Gawler has been gutted by a suspicious fire.
Fire crews attended the former Munno Para Bowling Club on Mingari Street, Munno Para, just before 5.30am on Friday to find the vacant building alight after receiving multiple calls from nearby
residents.
It took nine Metropolitan Fire Service (MFS) appliances, 36 firefighters and one CFS truck half an hour to bring the blaze under control, and a further 90 minutes to fully extinguish it.
No one was inside the building during the fire, with the cause of the blaze still unknown to police investigators.
MFS commander Noel Todd said the ferocity of the fire caused the roof of the building to collapse, which hampered firefighters’ efforts.
“The building was fully involved in fire, flames were leaping through the roof line and this hampered the fire crews initially from working inside,” he said.
“As a result of the ferocity of the fire, we brought in one of our larger aerial appliances to deliver a larger volume of water onto the fire.
“There was a significant amount of smoke and an advice message was issued to residents in Munno Para to the west of the fire.
“It was nuisance smoke, and giving the timing of the day, with peak hour traffic, we were concerned about road users on Curtis Road.”
The land which the building occupied is under contract to be sold to German supermarket giant Kaufland, which plans to develop a large shopping precinct at the site.
Playford Council approved for Kaufland to submit an independent development plan amendment for the Mingari Street site at a meeting on May 14.
Playford mayor Glenn Docherty said discussions around demolishing the building had begun with Kaufland, but no date had been set for the demolition.
“Now, someone has decided they’d want to do the job for the developer,” he said.
“It is very disappointing that there was a potential arson to this site and of course this concerns the community that there could potentially be people out there who want to damage this facility.
“It’s absolutely disappointing that someone would come and set fire to a site like this.
“Obviously, fire cause investigators will be going through the scene and finding a potential cause, but on initial assessment (pointing to) potential arson, it’s really disappointing someone wants
to put firefighters’ lives at risk by setting this building alight.”