{"id":65846,"date":"2026-08-05T21:45:10","date_gmt":"2026-08-05T21:45:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/65846\/"},"modified":"2026-08-05T21:45:10","modified_gmt":"2026-08-05T21:45:10","slug":"maidstone-martial-arts-centre-set-on-fire-in-second-arson-attack-targeting-gyms-in-two-days","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/65846\/","title":{"rendered":"Maidstone martial arts centre set on fire in second arson attack targeting gyms in two days"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">Police are investigating an arson attack on a gym in Melbourne&#8217;s inner west overnight.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">Emergency services were called to the Genesis Health Club in Hampstead Road, Maidstone, after reports of a large fire about 12:30am.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">Fire Rescue Victoria said crews arrived at the scene within seven minutes to find the three-storey concrete building well alight.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">The building contained a gym and martial arts facility.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">It took about an hour for fire crews to bring the blaze under control and firefighters remained at the scene this morning to put out any hot spots.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"A damaged building.\" class=\"Image_image__5tFYM ContentImage_image__DQ_cq\"  src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/8049a988dad4f1d03c3ff371fa878a1b.jpeg\" loading=\"lazy\" data-component=\"Image\" data-lazy=\"true\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"Typography_base__sj2RP FigureCaption_text__zDxQ5 Typography_sizeMobile12__w_FPC Typography_lineHeightMobile20___U7Vr Typography_regular__WeIG6 Typography_colourInherit__dfnUx\" data-component=\"Typography\">It took fire crews about an hour to bring the blaze at the gym under control. (ABC News)<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">There was nobody inside the building, which sustained significant damage.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">Victoria Police said the offenders fled the scene and investigators were treating the fire as a targeted incident.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">Anyone who witnessed any suspicious activity in the area or has vision of the incident has been urged to contact CrimeStoppers on 1800 333 000.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">It follows the firebombing of another gym in Taylors Lakes on Tuesday night which is also operated by Genesis Health Club.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">During that incident, two people working in the gym were told by masked offenders to leave the building before it was set alight.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Police are investigating an arson attack on a gym in Melbourne&#8217;s inner west overnight. Emergency services were called&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":65847,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[2034,312,844,29490,61317,260,1047],"class_list":["post-65846","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-melbourne","tag-arson","tag-crime","tag-fire","tag-gym","tag-maidstone","tag-melbourne","tag-police"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65846","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=65846"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65846\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65847"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65846"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65846"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65846"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}