'Like being fried': WA mum suffers serious burns in firebombing

Monday, 3 November 2025 23:55

While she spent 17 days recovering in hospital, the attackers came back to finish the job.

A West Australian mother who suffered horrific burns in a firebombing attack has described how she felt her skin melt away.

Penelope Travers needed marathon surgery to repair burns to 25 per cent of her body and won't be able to work for weeks.

It was 4am when Travers' garage in Mandurah, south of Perth, exploded, sending her fleeing into the night with her pants alight.

She was trying to save her home when a spray paint can blew up in her face earlier this year.

"It felt like being fried, flesh fried, instant, quick, just burn," she said.

For 17 agonising days the single mother-of-two lay in a hospital bed in the burns unit at Fiona Stanley Hospital.

She was covered head-to-toe in thick dressings in between undergoing surgery and blood transfusions.

"Both my arms, the backs of my hands and the top of my foot have all had skin grafts," she said.

It wasn't until later police told her it was a targeted attack.

Someone had thrown a fire bomb at her car but it bounced off, instead setting the garage on fire.

As she recovered in hospital the attackers came back to finish the job.

Her ute was set alight while her 16-year-old daughter was home alone.

"This brought something traumatic to my doorstep and I couldn't protect my children from seeing this or dealing with this," she said.

"They're still having nightmares."

Mandurah detectives are investigating both fire attacks, which are being treated as suspicious

Anyone with information is urged to contact police.

Travers is sore and itchy, but recovering but with no way to work, she's started a fundraiser to help pay the bills and aid the long road to recovery.

"I am originally from NZ but have called Australia home for almost 15 years," she wrote on the online fundraiser.

"Unfortunately, being a Kiwi means the Australian Government has very few financial supports available to me.

"I have been granted a temporary benefit but it does not cover my rent, let alone any other monthly expenses."

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