The manager of a vast Central Australian cattle station said more than 60 per cent had been burnt by a massive bushfire that raged through the 1,400 square kilometre property east of Alice Springs.
Key points:
- Some 33 million hectares of land has been burnt by bushfires in Northern Territory this season
- A station owner has been fighting fires all week and believes stock has been lost
- A researcher believes the bushfire season may extend through to February 2024
Ben Hayes, whose family has lived on Undoolya Station for more than a century, said his crew was now “on the front foot” and had the blaze mostly under control.
“All of the north side of Undoolya … it’s torched,” he said.
“There’s not a lot left there now.
“Trees are just skeletons on the ground. It was a hot fire.”
It comes as the Northern Territory reports 33 million hectares of land has been burnt this bushfire season, which typically runs from April to November.
Five times size of Tasmania
That is five times the size of Tasmania, and far surpasses the area burnt in the devastating Black Summer bushfires of 2019-20.
Mr Hayes said he was certain there had been stock losses but was yet to assess the full extent of the damage.
“There will definitely be stock losses because that fire moved so fast,” he said.
“I’d have infrastructure losses as well. We nearly lost the homestead. We were lucky we kept that under control around here.
“But I’ve got pipelines that are burnt. I’ve got fences that are burnt.”
He said further north east on his brother’s property, solar panels were left as “puddles on the ground” after the blaze tore through the region.
Mr Hayes said he had never seen a fire move so quickly through the station, which was home to mostly native grasses and little buffel.
“It just wouldn’t stop, and any containment lines we put in, it was just jumping them,” he said.
“In this hill country, it’s a bit hard to pull these fires up because if it gets over one, then you’ve got to go back a fair way and try it again.
“It was just roaring through the trees, like mulga and anything like that. It did burn the ground, but it was in the trees as well.”
He said despite a few close calls when the fire fronts became too dangerous to fight, his crew had all escaped without injury.
Season could stretch to February
Fire has now burnt through nearly a quarter of the Northern Territory this season, according to Rohan Fisher, a fire management researcher at Charles Darwin University.
“Fortunately, most of area that has burnt hasn’t impacted people directly. Most, but not all of it,” he said.
With this bushfire season already dubbed the toughest in a decade, Dr Fisher said it was possible the season could extend through to February 2024.
“Around Alice [Springs] and further south … there’s nothing really to stop [the fires],” he said.
“They’re big fuel loads and the buffel grass issue is certainly playing a bigger factor this year.
“We haven’t seen fires of this size on that country since 2011.”
Dr Fisher said much of the fire had burnt further north in the tropical savannas of the Top End.
“They are the most fire-prone landscapes in the world,” he said.
“It’s just the nature of those savannas, where we get huge grass loads every year. They dry out, and whether it’s lightning or people, they will burn.”
Dr Fisher said that while he did not consider the fires burning to the north of the territory as “problematic”, the ones burning around Central Australia were “where the issue is”.
Mr Hayes said after more than a week of fighting the fire “flat out” on Undoolya Station, it was time to recuperate before starting a massive repair job.
“My blokes and I … did a shift the other night. It was a 48-hour shift,” he said.
“We don’t even know what [day it is] half the time. Whether it’s day or night, you just keep going.
“We ended up that bloody tired, but we couldn’t stop.
“Now it’s a case of rest up, lick our wounds, go back and fix everything up a bit now.”
