A timely change in the wind saved Charlie Clarke’s cattle farm from devastation during the Black Summer bushfires of 2019.
This fire season, he’s taking no chances.
Hot and dry conditions across Queensland have led to more than 1,000 fires across the state in recent weeks, resulting in dozens of properties and several lives lost.
On the Scenic Rim, west of the Gold Coast, fire bans have been enforced early in the season, and on Mr Clarke’s Beechmont smallholding, the lack of rain has stunted the grass pastures.
Instead of relaxing at the farmhouse watching the cattle fatten, he’s destocking.
“What do you do? Do you let your cattle starve? Do you shoot them? No,” Mr Clarke said.
“It’s why we’ve done what we’ve done, get rid of the cattle and get the best money we can for them,” he said.
“It hurts that you won’t have an income until it rains again and we get pasture, [because] that’s going to be 12 months at least.”
Livestock aren’t the only cause for concern as the El Niño weather pattern kicks in.
The usually verdant landscape surrounding Mr Clarke’s farm is parched, and the threat of fire is rising.
“It’s a worry because [in fire] you start losing your fences and it’s also your neighbours and what happens to them,” Mr Clarke said.
“It’s sad to see … the ridge along here, when it’s green it’s beautiful but when it’s dry it’s shocking.”
Past experiences prepare residents
Bushfires that swept through parts of the Scenic Rim in September 2019 destroyed the historic Binna Burra Lodge in the Lamington National Park, and forced many people to leave their properties.
In Canungra, the memories of what came to be known as the Black Summer bushfires are adding to residents’ concerns about what this season could bring.
“[Fire] is a subject that everybody is talking about,” boutique owner Michelle Roper-Dennis said.
“The creek’s low, there’s not much water happening, so it’s a scary time.”
Fellow local Kate Stonestreet helped friends and neighbours evacuate their rural properties in 2019.
“It was like something out of a war movie … there were people standing on the side of the road with their animals begging for someone to take them to safety,” Ms Stonestreet said.
“[Remembering that] makes us all emotional but I think, we’re Queenslanders – we live and we learn and we become stronger from it.”
She said that while many in the community are anxious about what this fire season could bring, past experiences have made locals better prepared.
“We’re super dry and we’ve also had a bunch of wind, so those conditions all combined are a recipe for a pretty chaotic summer season for us,” she said.
“The lesson from 2019 is not to wait until the last minute and I don’t think anyone will do that this season.
“This isn’t the time to be a hero … as soon as the warnings to leave come up, you just leave — you take your animals, you take what you need, and you leave.”
Authorities managing risk
The dry conditions on the eastern reaches of the Scenic Rim belie the drenching the region received in 2022, with more than 2.3 metres of rain recorded at the Australian Army’s Kokoda Barracks outside Canungra.
For residents and landholders, that rainfall is long gone, but the growth it helped create in the region’s forests and national parks is front of mind for authorities.
“The fuel loads out there are above average, and we attribute that to the fact that we did have that significant rain event late last year and into January this year,” said Chief Superintendent Alan Gillespie from Queensland’s Rural Fire Service (RFS).
“I can understand why residents in the Scenic Rim would be nervous at this time of year as it is very dry out there, and given they were heavily impacted in 2018-19 and 2019-20.”
In the densely forested hills and national parks of the region, firefighters and Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service (QPWS) rangers have been burning hundreds of hectares of land to reduce the risk of severe fires.
RFS manager of bushfire mitigation for south-east Queensland Joe Cullen said the bushfire season had started off “fairly typically”.
Mr Cullen said nervousness in the community is a good thing.
“With the El Niño impacting, and moving into the summer months, we’re seeing that our hazard reduction windows of opportunity have shortened,” he said.
“If the community are becoming aware of the conditions around them and starting to feel uneasy, it’s a good time for them to start researching what they can do to prepare their properties.”
National Parks and Wildlife Service ranger Rachel Chapman said while authorities do everything they can to manage the risk of bushfire, they need landholders and residents doing their part.
“It’s a joint responsibility. Fire doesn’t know boundaries,” she said.
“Often fires are started off in national parks [and] they burn through national parks.
“Really, it’s about knowing where you live and the different factors that impact fire.”
