A Perth man has been charged with stealing copper wire used as part of the recovery effort in the Western Australian town of Yarloop, which was all but destroyed by a massive bushfire last month.

The wire was being used by Western Power to re-connect electricity to residents impacted by last month’s blaze, which consumed more than 160 properties and just about levelled the town.

Police said they caught the 33-year old man in Preston Beach allegedly loading his car and trailer with hundreds of metres of the material.

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He has been charged with stealing and driving an unlicensed vehicle.

Constable Julian Jennings said the wire could have been traded for cash as scrap metal.

He is urging other locals to look out for people behaving suspiciously in the fire zone.

“I guess they’re playing on the fact that people are very busy repairing and doing works and aren’t going to take too much notice,” Constable Jennings said.

“But on this occasion they did and reported it to police, which is fantastic, and we were able to act very quickly and nab him in the act.”

Constable Jennings said he believed the man was trying to hide what he was doing, taking the powerlines out into the bush so they were out of public view.