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1Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problems2Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitches3Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errorsA fire in the City of Subiaco administration centre’s server room at 241 Rokeby Road, Subiaco, Western Australia, early on Tuesday 6 September 2022 caused severe damage to network infrastructure and disrupted the council’s phones and organisation-wide systems. No one was injured because the building was empty. The centre did not simply reopen after the outage: customer service moved to Jolimont, council operations later moved to Hay Street, and the old civic building was eventually considered for demolition and replacement.
What happened on 6 September 2022
An early-morning fire was detected in the administration centre’s server room. Contemporary reporting said an IT worker noticed smoke at about 5 a.m. Fire and Emergency Services (DFES) and Western Power attended, and the fire was extinguished before it spread widely. Smoke filled the building and soot reached the roof cavity, contaminating areas beyond the room where the fire began. No staff were present and no injuries were reported.
The City’s initial notice said the cause was being investigated, with electrical contractors and engineers involved and no suspicious circumstances identified. The City’s incident notice and contemporary news account describe the immediate response and smoke damage.
Why a small fire caused a large operational outage
The server room held the City’s network infrastructure, primary servers and storage. Later City records described that infrastructure as destroyed or seriously damaged. The physical impact therefore affected the systems on which everyday council communications and services depended, rather than just one computer or an isolated office network.
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Phones and organisation-wide systems went offline. Email and other services were unavailable or unreliable during the first days. The public record supports severe equipment damage and loss of service availability, but it does not establish that every file or every backup was permanently lost. Public documents also do not identify the complete server inventory, backup architecture or a definitive recovery rate.
Effects on residents, customers and staff
- Staff worked from home or other City facilities where possible.
- The after-hours call centre continued handling calls, although delays were expected.
- City email was restored by 8 September, but residents were asked to resend messages sent between 6 September and noon on 8 September because some may not have been received.
- Customer service moved to 19 Bishop Street, Jolimont, from Monday 12 September 2022.
- Subiaco Library and Lords Recreation Centre remained open, although some services could be affected; Subiaco Museum was temporarily closed because critical infrastructure and power had been affected.
The City’s service update records the email warning and the Jolimont arrangements: customer-service relocation update.
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Incident and recovery timeline
| Date | What happened |
|---|---|
| 6 September 2022 | Fire discovered in the server room at 241 Rokeby Road. DFES and Western Power attended; the fire was extinguished. Staff were absent, and City systems and phones went offline. |
| 6–8 September 2022 | Staff moved to remote or alternative work locations. The City began restoring systems and data and planning smoke cleaning. Damage was reported to be worse than first anticipated. |
| 12 September 2022 | Customer service opened temporarily at 19 Bishop Street, Jolimont. |
| Late 2022–2023 | Emergency procurement covered IT replacement, remediation, communications, engineering, security and continuity measures. The insurer accepted the City’s claim. |
| 14 April 2023 | The Jolimont temporary customer-service period ended. |
| 2022–23 onward | Council and administrative staff moved to Level 2, 388 Hay Street, Subiaco, under a planned four-year arrangement. Council investigated demolition and rebuilding at 241 Rokeby Road. |
What caused the fire?
The explanation changed as the investigation progressed. On 6 September, the City said DFES, Western Power and contractors were still investigating and reported no suspicious circumstances. In a later relocation notice, the City said a water leak onto electrical equipment caused the fire: City relocation information.
Later council material also described an ageing building with recurring water penetration and water damage, including problems associated with its flat roof. That context helps explain the City’s account, but the publicly available material does not include a detailed independent forensic fire report. The water-leak explanation should therefore be attributed to the City, not presented as an independently published forensic conclusion.
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How much infrastructure was damaged?
The City’s later financial statements and council papers describe damage to or destruction of the server-room network infrastructure and primary systems. A June 2023 council agenda listed $382,098.18 in emergency expenditure for IT support, replacement and related recovery work, along with remediation, communications, engineering and security. That figure is a listed emergency-expenditure amount in the agenda, not a confirmed final cost of the incident or the total insurance settlement. See the 27 June 2023 council agenda.
The records show restoration of systems and data was under way, but they do not quantify permanent data loss, specify which individual servers failed, or describe the City’s backup and recovery-point arrangements. It is therefore inaccurate to say that all City data was lost or that every server was destroyed.
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Why the administration centre did not simply reopen
The building was closed to staff and the public while the City dealt with smoke contamination, damaged services and the server-room failure. Customer service operated from Jolimont before council and administrative functions moved to Level 2, 388 Hay Street. The 2022–23 annual report describes the Hay Street premises as a four-year relocation: City of Subiaco Annual Report 2022–23.
The fire was not the sole origin of the redevelopment idea. The City had already been considering its civic accommodation, while later documents said the ageing building’s condition, longstanding water problems and the September 2022 fire made restoration less suitable. In December 2022, council resolved to investigate demolition and rebuilding at 241 Rokeby Road. The City later described plans for a new civic building and gardens as part of a wider Civic Precinct project, with public consultation reported in 2025: 241 Rokeby Road update and new civic building and gardens information.
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- Established: The fire began in the server room on 6 September 2022; no one was injured; phones and council systems went offline; smoke and soot affected the building; customer service was relocated; and the old site was later targeted for demolition and rebuilding investigations.
- Not established in the available public records: the exact number and value of servers destroyed, whether any particular database was permanently lost, the complete forensic sequence, the final recovery cost, and the final insurance settlement.
The incident’s significance was operational rather than visual: a fire confined initially to a server room disrupted a whole local government because critical communications and computing infrastructure were concentrated there. The resulting outage, temporary service locations and eventual civic-site redevelopment lasted far beyond the morning when the flames were extinguished.
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