WA farming community loses 500 sheep, thousands of hectares of crops in fire
Sarah and Lee-ann Dring are facing a difficult Christmas post bushfire. (ABC Midwest & Wheatbelt: Brianna Melville)
In short:
A farming community in WA's Midwest region say they have suffered devastating losses in a bushfire.
The sheep death toll has risen to about 500, while recovery efforts have focused on fixing fences and watering surviving livestock.
What's next?
Farmers say it will take several years to regain nearly 13,000 hectares of lost pasture, crop fields, fencing and wildlife habitat.
A farming community in WA's Midwest region say they have suffered devastating losses to a bushfire, a week before Christmas.
About 100 farmers helped fight the fire for several days in Warradarge, about 250 kilometres north of Perth, amid power and mobile service outages ignited by lightning on December 14.
This week, the sheep death toll of the fire has risen to about 500, and community efforts have been focused on feeding and watering surviving livestock.
However, some farmers said it would take several years to regain nearly 13,000 hectares of lost pasture, crop fields, fencing and wildlife habitat.
The fire razed over 13,200 hectares of farm and reserve land. (Supplied: Sarah Dring)
Harvest halted, power remains off
Local farmers paused harvesting to help fight the fire, which burned at an emergency level for more than 24 hours last week and continued at lower levels for four more days.
Warradarge Volunteer Bushfire Brigade captain Ben Plozza labelled it the worst bushfire he had seen in the area.
"It was very fast-moving and changing on the wind," he said.
"This one outran us and conditions were ripe to do that."
BlaizeAid volunteers have arrived to assist with the repair of fencing after the fire. (ABC Midwest & Wheatbelt: Brianna Melville)
Mr Plozza said mobile service outages during the emergency affected the ability of those on the fire ground to alert the wider community.
The fire damaged poles, cutting mobile and power supplies to the area for about a week for most residents.
Farmer Mandy Grieger said the power and mobile outages continued at her farm for eight days.
"They still can't tell us when we're going to get our power back," she said.
"Maybe this fire might not have got as bad if people could get information out to each other a bit quicker."
Mandy Grieger said the power outage continued at her farm for eight days. (ABC Midwest & Wheatbelt: Brianna Melville)
Farms hit hard with recovery uncertain
Several farms lost varying amounts of unharvested crops, pasture, hay and reserve bushland, stretches of fencing, as well as a combined 500 sheep.
The worst-affected property was a sheep and crop farm run by Sarah Dring and her parents, Lee-ann and Gary Dring.
They lost a small number of sheep, about 300 bales of hay, more than100 kilometres of fencing and large areas of pasture and bushland that had been preserved for wildlife.
BlazeAid volunteers embark on the huge job of repairing fences destroyed in the fire. (ABC Midwest & Wheatbelt: Brianna Melville)
Volunteers from Blazeaid started fixing fences this week, and local miner Iluka trucked in water for the surviving sheep while the electric bores were out of action.
However, Ms Dring said significant losses of fences, ungrazed pasture and hay meant the future of the farm was uncertain.
"At this point, we don't know if we can recover,"she said.
"The amount of work that we are going to have to do to rehabilitate the soils, we haven't quite wrapped our heads around it yet."
Getting water to surviving sheep has been the priority of farmers after a bushfire razed their properties and stopped bores from working. (ABC Midwest & Wheatbelt: Brianna Melville)
Sheep farmer Brian White said his farm lost about 800 hectares of pasture and bushland, 20 kilometres of fencing and 230 sheep that were being agisted.
He said the fire came at an unfortunate time for many who had hoped to have their harvesting finished by Christmas.
"You think everything's going along hunky dory with Christmas just around the corner to celebrate and then all of a sudden you've lost part of your farm and maybe stock and part of your income,"he said.
"People with livestock, they'll be short of feed for summer for sure."
Wildlife burnt
Bluebush Wildlife Rescue Volunteer Sue Rose said the burnt out area was home to large populations of reptiles, honey possums, echidnas, kangaroos and crucial habitat for threatened Carnaby's Cockatoos.
Wildlife carer Sue Rose said the burnt area in Warradarge was home to large populations of reptiles, echidnas and kangaroos. (Supplied: Sue Rose)
She surveyed the burnt land this week and found several dead and injured bobtails.
"It's quite devastating really, the wildlife you don't see straight away,"she said.
"They don't tend to emerge from the fireground until probably a week or so down the track.
"And that's when people will start seeing them, when they are starting to search for water and shelter."
Ms Rose said that in previous cases, volunteers had had to euthanise animals up to 10 weeks after the fires.
"Kangaroos will walk on burnt feet for weeks," she said.
Travellers in the area are urged to be aware of animals that cannot walk properly. (ABC Midwest & Wheatbelt: Brianna Melville)
Ms Rose said travellers in the area should be aware of animals that cannot walk properly.
"We do encourage people to carry maybe something like a couple of pillow cases and a towel or a box in the car because if it's a bobtail, which you're likely to see on the road, or a small joey, you can pop them in that bag," she said.
"We want to encourage them to call us, or any wildlife organisation, for advice."