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A person has died in a fire on board a yacht moored at Albany, on Western Australia's south coast.
Firefighters were called to the Princess Royal Sailing Club in Albany's harbour just after 8:30pm on Thursday to extinguish the blaze.
Police said they found the body of a person on the vessel.
They have yet to confirm the deceased person's identity.
The yacht has been declared a crime scene pending further investigations into the fire by Arson Squad detectives.
Superintendent Dominic Wood said several lines of inquiry were being pursued.
He said police were keen to positively identify the body and notify the person's family.
"That's our focus, after that we'll be waiting for detectives to come back out this morning with our arson investigators," he said.
"As a matter of course we have our arson investigations teams coming down from Perth today and they will liaise with fire investigators.
"That is the big question: how [did this fire start], so we are just waiting to find out.
"We have secured the scene here at the yacht club."
Princess Royal Sailing Club manager Rod Hedderwick said he first noticed the fire from across the harbour.
"I live in the middle of town with a view over the harbour and I noticed a lot of flashing lights out at the sailing club area," he said.
Mr Hedderwick said the death had already been felt by the close-knit sailing community.
"It certainly is impacting on members already, we've had a number of enquiries about who it might be and whether everything is safe," he said.
"[We are] trying to get through the ordinary day's business, looking after the members who are concerned about the situation."
Mr Hedderwick said there was no extinguishing equipment on the boat pens.
"But the boats are certainly required to have fire extinguishing equipment," he said.
Topics: accidents---other, fires, albany-6330
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