By Jeremy Cook
Almost six months on from when bushfires swept through parts of the Granite Belt and rural landholders are still recovering.
For Dalveen grazier Del Mitchell, fires tore right through her paddock, narrowly avoiding her house and shearing shed.
At the time of talking, Ms Mitchell had only just retrieved the last of five cows which escaped her paddock during the disaster.
She said ongoing problems with restoring fire damaged fencing on her property had been one of the biggest challenges in recovering from last year’s fires.
“Where the fire went, it’s either damaged the fencing making it very brittle … or it totally wiped it out,” Ms Mitchell said.
“My cattle went all the way down to the four wheel drive park way down past Braeside.
“I’m not the only one, there are other people with cattle [which have] just gone everywhere.”
Ms Mitchell said volunteers from Rural Aid visited last week to help rebuild part of her yard which had been burnt out.
Disaster recovery organisations like Rural Aid and Blaze Aid have been in the Granite Belt since November helping rural landholders restore properties damaged by fires earlier that month.
The organisations rely primarily on volunteers, which in the case of Blaze Aid, consists largely of grey nomads and backpackers, Blaze Aid vice president Christine Male said.
Ms Male, who helps coordinate Blaze Aid camps in all parts of the country, said the organisation had completed work on about 30 mostly agricultural properties, building predominantly fencing.
“Your initial response is to stop stock from wandering on roads or railway lines to contain them,” she said.
“But you’ve also got to take it one step further than that once the emergency part of it is over and that is to build paddocks.
“The farmers can’t carry out their business if they can’t build a paddock.”
Ms Male said she would like to see more support for disaster-affected farmers, particularly in assisting them procure materials.
“They’re coping with multiple disasters and just trying to get back on to their feet and get back farming,” she said.
“We need them producing so we’ve got food on the table.”
Blaze Aid volunteers have cleared more than 37 kilometres of fire damaged fencing throughout the region since November, rebuilding approximately 20 kilometres worth.
At Wilson’s Fruit and Nut Tree Nursery in Dalveen, which was heavily damaged in last year’s fires, owner Brian Wilson will reopen his doors to customers by the end of April for the first time since December.
Mr Wilson was thankful to volunteers from Rural Aid and Blaze Aid, who he said without their help, reopening would not be possible.
“I’ll be opening up for end of autumn and winter with plenty of stock,” he said.
“The hard part was most of my infrastructure was burnt out.
“I had to re-fence the entire property … it [the fires] burnt all the internal fences out.
“I only recently have had irrigation water hooked up to the field nursery three to four days ago.”
Mr Wilson estimated losses of up to about $700,000 from stock and machinery which had been burnt out during last year’s fires.
“It is heartbreaking,” he said.
“I’m looking forward to opening back up and to support customers with fruit trees.”
Recovery efforts are expected to continue throughout the Granite Belt for some period of time.
Ms Male said she does not expect Blaze Aid will leave the region until sometime between September and Christmas this year.
