Farm Life - 2. FAR Chapter 2

The amount of rain was still a main concern, and with the reduced stock numbers, we have plenty of pasture, plus summer hay feed to keep our cattle well fed, while other neighbouring farms were beginning to struggle. For us we had no bank debt to worry about, we owned everything on the farm, and had some money saved for urgent or difficult times.

By the time I came home at the end of the school year, summer had started just two weeks earlier, and already we have been having some very dry and hot spells, my dad and grandfather had been keeping busy with fencing another two more paddocks, plus establishing extra wide fire breaks this year just to be sure.

We invested in some heavy-duty poly pipe, and long range sprinklers, with the pipe laid underground along the inside fence of the central laneway, which is actually two laneways that run parallel, on the north and south sides of the central paddocks. This would provide a safe haven for the family and stock, in case there is a major fire.

The sprinklers would moisten down the pasture in the 5 central paddocks, as well as most of the farm building roofs, and the laneways themselves, which are just bare wide roads, which act as an extra firebreak.

The stone cottage and old homestead, the hayshed and old stone barn all get a good soaking from the sprinklers, while the machinery shed and our home are just out of range, but are surrounded by plenty of green grass, as the water run - off from the sprinklers keeps that area watered and green.

A week before Christmas, a summer lightning storm triggered a number of fires around the state, the closest one to home being the pine plantation about 60 kilometres to the south, on the northern outskirts of Perth.

On boxing day in the late afternoon, we had another lightning storm, and this one struck closer to home, starting a fire on farmland north east of Kilburn, on the eastern side of the main highway, and the winds were from the north, so it was pushing the fire southwards.

As a precaution, we had all the stock shifted to the central paddocks, and the sprinklers were turned on for 30 minutes, every four hours. It was well after dark by the time we had the last of the stock relocated, the ground was nice and soggy after two sprinkler sessions, and my dad decided to let the sprinklers remain on a 4-hour cycle.

By day break, the situation didn’t look any better, it was quite a warm and humid night, and the temperature was climbing already, at this time of the morning. By 7am, there was a total fire ban put into place, as the maximum temperature was going to reach the high 30’s, and the wind speeds were increasing, and expected to change to an easterly wind in the afternoon.

Kilburn was already on alert, and most of the tourists at the caravan park were preparing to leave, as were other visitors staying in holiday houses.

At lunch time, the evacuation order for Kilburn and the nearby community of Rivervale was issued, and we chose to stay and defend out property. When the wind turned and the fire was threatening to jump the highway, my dad convinced my mum and grandmother to take the 4 younger kids and get out while they can, taking with them the two farm dogs, and the pet cat.

Half an hour later, they called to let us know that they were out of the fire zone, and heading to the city to stay with friends.

Dad and I took it in turns to go out in the farm ute, to patrol the two laneways, to make sure the sprinklers were doing a good job of soaking the ground, as well as checking the stock, and on one of my patrols, I grabbed the two large garden sprinklers and placed them at the front of the hay shed, to try and protect our supply of hay bales that is late summer feed for the cattle.

On the way back, I noticed the change of wind direction, coming from the north east, and I knew that this was not good, so I planted my foot down on the accelerator. When I arrived back, I saw dad and grandfather moving furniture and belongings from our main house to the old homestead, and I joined in helping as we watched the glow of the fire get closer and closer, and when we had retrieved as much as we could we went into the old homestead for shelter and waited.

Stepping out onto the veranda every half an hour to check on the location of the fire, we were shocked when we saw that it had jumped the highway, and was now heading west, along the southern end of the property.

We heard fire bomber planes fly over us a few times, then the roar of the fire was all we could hear, as the wind had changed again with a strong sea breeze arriving, and the fire was now heading straight for us, as we took one last look outside before retreating indoors, noticing that the sprinklers were currently on, with a 20-metre diameter coverage, was providing a greater level of protection for the farm buildings and stock.

Once inside, I was shocked to see Grandfather pull back the large shelving unit in the kitchen, to reveal a door, which he opened, and with a lamp in hand he descended down a set of stairs, after a moment of being stunned at the existence of the passage and stairs, I followed, with my dad behind, closing the shelving unit and door behind him.

The stairs went down deep, around twenty feet deep I estimated, at the bottom of the stairs there was another door, which I followed my Grandfather through, and we entered a large room, which contained a large dining table with 8 chairs in the centre, on one short wall there is a kitchen bench, a sink, some shelving and in the corner there is an old fashioned meat safe.

There was another door, which I was told leads to the bathroom and laundry, but I didn’t bother to explore them. I sat down at the table where I now noticed a couple of boxes, that grandfather and my dad had brought with them, which contained two thermos’s of hot water, some fruit, bread, a packet of biscuits, some canned food, a couple cartons of long-life milk and a bottle of fruit juice. For the next few hours or so we just sat at the table chatting, while drinking tea and munching on biscuits

When the roar of the fire began to die down, we climbed the stairs and opening the door and shelving unit, we were happy to see that the homestead was still in one piece. We noticed the sound of thunder and the sound of light rain on the homestead roof, and when we went out to check the location of the fire, we were shocked to see the main house was fully ablaze as is the machinery shed.

Luckily, I had parked my beach buggy close to the nearby stone cottage, where there is a sprinkler close by, and the main farm ute was parked near the old homestead and was also untouched by the fire, which was still burning and racing towards the coast.

Dad and I jumped into the farm ute, which had the fire unit on the back, and we went to put out the fire in the machinery shed, which had already destroyed one older ute, a small tractor and a trailer. We managed to extinguish the fire before it damaged the workshop, storage area, and any of the motorbikes.

Next we headed over to the main house, to put out the fire, which had nearly totally destroyed our home, the roof had collapsed, as have the veranda’s all around, and every room inside was virtually gutted.

When the wind changed again and headed south away from the farm, my dad and I went in separate vehicles to check on all of the cattle, we were glad to see that all of them were in good order with no injuries, we did find a number of singed kangaroos, a wallaby, a couple of echidnas and a goanna even, which we loaded into the vehicles and brought them back to the homestead paddock.

I suggested placing them all in the stone cottage yard, where I would camp, and look after the injured animals.

Most of them were just badly dehydrated from the heat of the day and the fire, as well as smoke inhalation, one echidna had singed paws, which with a pair of thick leather gloves, I carefully soaked with cool water, and wrapped a bandage around the paws to protect the burn area, and I placed them inside the cottage, so they won’t make the injuries worse.

The wallaby had a possible broken and singed tail, which I soaked and wrapped, before splinting the tail, the goanna had burns to its feet and tail, which I also soaked and wrapped, the kangaroos mostly had just singed fur coats, so I sprayed some cool water on the burn areas to cool them down. Dad brought over some bales of hay, some vegetables, a small bag of barley, and he had even managed to catch a number of bugs, including some ants for the echidnas, and the goanna.

The inverter generator had been saved, and was now sitting outside the stone cottage, to provide me with some electricity, and the car fridge stored in the shed, was not damaged in the fire, and would provide me a place to store food for myself and the animals.

Dad let me know that he had spoken to mum, to let them know we were safe, and that we lost the main house and part of the machinery shed, but most of the furniture and belongings from the house had been saved and are in the homestead. The next morning, we heard that the fire was out, and that over 16,000 acres had been burnt, we took a tour to inspect what damage we had and estimated that we lost about 1050 acres of pasture on the southern side paddocks from the fire.