{"id":13993,"date":"2026-05-19T04:16:45","date_gmt":"2026-05-19T04:16:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/13993\/"},"modified":"2026-05-19T04:16:45","modified_gmt":"2026-05-19T04:16:45","slug":"firefighters-break-roller-doors-to-tackle-suspicious-blaze-at-glenroy-butchers-and-grocery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/13993\/","title":{"rendered":"Firefighters break roller doors to tackle suspicious blaze at Glenroy butcher’s and grocery"},"content":{"rendered":"

Police are investigating a suspicious fire in Melbourne’s north in an area locals say has been targeted by arsonists multiple times.<\/p>\n

Emergency services were called to a butcher’s shop and an adjacent grocery store on Wheatsheaf Road in Glenroy about 2.40am after reports of an explosion.<\/p>\n

No-one was in the store at the time of the fire, and police said the circumstances surrounding the incident were still under investigation.<\/p>\n

\"Police<\/p>\n

The fire affected a butcher’s shop and an adjacent grocery in Wheatsheaf Road, Glenroy. (ABC News: Stephanie Ferrier)<\/p>\n

Kieran Purcell from Fire Rescue Victoria said more than 25 firefighters attended the scene and took about an hour to extinguish the blaze, which caused extensive damage.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“The crews went in there and did a very good job knocking down the fire. We’ve had to remove a large part of the roof to stop the fire extension, which went into the ceiling space,” he said.<\/p>\n

“They’ve had to cut down four roller doors. They’ve also had to cut into the roof.”<\/p>\n

At this stage, the fire is not being investigated as part of Operation Eclipse, which is overseeing investigations into arson attacks on licensed venues.<\/p>\n

\"Firefighters<\/p>\n

Firefighters were called to the scene about 2.40am and had to force their way into the shop to extinguish the blaze. (ABC News)<\/p>\n

Morale ‘very low’ in shopping strip<\/p>\n

The owner of the building, Mir Alam, said it appeared the fire was deliberately lit.<\/p>\n

“Terrible. I don’t know what happened, I don’t know why it happened,” he said.<\/p>\n

“It’s shocking and a surprise. Why would somebody do that? We checked the back door; somebody actually opened that door and set the fire inside.”<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Mir Alam says someone appears to have accessed the rear of the building and set it alight. (ABC News)<\/p>\n

Local resident John, who lives nearby, said there had been multiple fires in the area in the past few years.<\/p>\n

“That’s a tally of six explosions and fires in the last three years now,” he told ABC Radio Melbourne.<\/p>\n

“I was woken up to an explosion and the arrival of about six fire trucks, police and an ambulance.<\/p>\n

“It’s just disappointing, I’m actually getting immune to it.”<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

A butcher’s store was damaged by the fire in Glenroy overnight. (ABC News: Stephanie Ferrier)<\/p>\n

He said several weeks ago there was a shooting incident during which bullets were sprayed into a residential building.<\/p>\n

“The feeling of people who live on Wheatsheaf Road is very sad and poor, the morale is very low,” he said.<\/p>\n

Merri-bek Deputy Mayor Helen Davidson said it was a troubling incident.<\/p>\n

“It’s scary for anyone, anywhere and particularly the residents of Glenroy. I’m a resident myself and to wake up and hear this news, it’s really concerning,” she told ABC Radio Melbourne.<\/p>\n

“People deserve to feel safe in their homes, safe in their businesses and walking through our local shopping strips and neighbourhoods.<\/p>\n

“There’s no place for this kind of criminal behaviour and it’s hurting hardworking local businesses.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Police are investigating a suspicious fire in Melbourne’s north in an area locals say has been targeted by…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13994,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[2034,844,5091,14319,260,1047],"class_list":["post-13993","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-melbourne","tag-arson","tag-fire","tag-firefighters","tag-glenroy","tag-melbourne","tag-police"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13993","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13993"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13993\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13994"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13993"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13993"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13993"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}