Despite ‘8-foot-high’ flames rushing towards her property, 88-year-old Del Mitchell managed to save her cattle

An 88-year-old woman is sitting on a quad bike surrounded by hectares of her fire-ravaged land. 

Her name is Del Mitchell, and, unbelievably, she’s in high spirits.

“I’m always positive,” she says.

She was positive as fires near her hometown of Dalveen, in Queensland’s Southern Downs, surged to emergency levels this week.

“The police came and evacuated everyone but I stayed because everything’s mowed around [the house] and I thought I was pretty right,” she says.

Mrs Mitchell remained positive even when “8-foot high” flames started rushing across her pastures. She knew that “once it got into the mowed area it would be simple to put out”.

It’s been a devastating week for parts of Queensland with dozens of fires breaking out across the state.

In Tara, 58 homes were destroyed before Dalveen became the focus of attention on Wednesday.

But despite the emergency warnings, the flames and the smoke clouds, Mrs Mitchell’s been positive.

Except for one moment: when she was standing at the gate of a paddock staring a “huge wall of flame” and calling for her cattle.

Mrs Mitchell had been opening every gate on her property to allow her cows to escape; she “didn’t care if they went on the highway or where they went”.

She just wanted them to be safe.

But there were 17 cattle in that paddock behind the wall of flame and they weren’t coming out, and Mrs Mitchell’s incorrigible optimism was fading.

“I was at the gate and I was calling and I thought they’re all dead,” Mrs Mitchell said.

“Then two came through the flames and smoke, then the whole lot came through.”

She tells the story with a smile and tears in her eyes with her cattle routinely walking past, close to her, as she speaks.

Mrs Mitchell muses the animals must think she has hay but to the onlooker, it seems more like they’re thanking her.

The cattle now live in the 100-yard square of unburnt land around Mrs Mitchell’s house grazing on hay her “kind neighbours” brought over.

Mrs Mitchell laughs: “They don’t realise, there’s no fence”.

The fences were destroyed in the blaze, along with fields and the precious grass they held.

The Mitchell’s home was saved, but there’s a long and costly road to recovery.

Mrs Mitchell hopes she won’t be forced to sell the cows: Prices are low right now, and that’d be another blow.

Still, unbelievably, she’s somehow feeling positive.

“I’ll sort it all out,” she says.

She’ll be able to shift stock, rearrange things.

She looks out at her land and her cattle and pensively says “yes”.

“Keep positive and you’ll get through,” she says. 

‘I’m not upset’

Down the road, Giulia Bonfanti looks at her land and says that the burnt ground is “crunchy”.

It’s charred, scorched and black as far as the eye can see.

Out the front of the property there’s half a power pole dangling from power lines.

It’s been burned in half by the same fires that destroyed the land.

The lower end is still glowing with embers.

It looks like a giant cigarette; the fields around it look like an ashtray.

Mrs Bonfanti talks about her property in past tense.

“From here down was all trees, new trees growing a metre high,” she says.

“This was all trees along the front you couldn’t really see anything because the trees were growing so well.”

The fields she is pointing to now just look like ash.

But like her neighbour, Ms Bonfanti is positive too.

“I’m not upset,” she says.

“I know that Australian plants regenerate. I have no animals except for a dog so I know it will regenerate.”

When the fires were raging, she says she was more scared for her neighbours’ properties because they had animals. 

“I’ve messaged the guy and said your place doesn’t even look like it’s been touched. So your animals will be okay for food,” she said.

Ms Bonfanti pauses, sighs, and thanks the firefighters who saved her home from the flames.

“They water-bombed, thank god … but it came so close,” she says.

It’s just the start of the fire season. Is Mrs Bonfanti concerned?

“I’m safe,” she says.

“There’s nothing to burn.”