KI fire threat reduced as army descends on island to help with recovery effort
Farm units and water bombers have arrived to fight a new blaze that has broken out in a sheep stud on Kangaroo Island, as communities remain on alert for spot fires. A convoy of army vehicles has descended on the island to help the recovery effort, as residents dig in deep to help neighbours and friends.
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Spot fires continue to flare up on Kangaroo Island as a convoy of army vehicles with up to 100 reservists arrives to help the recovery effort.
The CFS says the Ravine fire continues to burn on the western end of the island, with a fire edge running between the south coast, west of Vivonne Bay, and the north coast, around Stokes Bay. It is also actively burning in remote inaccessible terrain in the Flinders Chase National Park.
Farm units have arrived to fight a new fire which has broken out on Stokes Bay Rd in a sheep stud which has been decimated from 6000 sheep to 30 pic.twitter.com/DW6cUiFMbn
— Col James (@ColinJamesTiser) January 6, 2020
Spot fires are still breaking out on either side of Stokes Bay Rd, however a Watch and Act alert issued this morning for the Ravine fire at Stokes Bay near Lathami Conservation Park was downgraded to an advice message just before 10am.
Farm units and water bombers have arrived to fight a new fire that has broken out on Stokes Bay Rd in a sheep stud which has been decimated from 6000 sheep to 30.
Work to assess the full extent of the damage and help locals get back on their feet is under way with the army personnel and supplies arriving in Penneshaw.
Hundreds of items of clothing have been donated by Kangaroo Island residents to help neighbours and friends who lost everything they own in the devastating bushfires. The clothing can be picked up from the Parndana Community Hall pic.twitter.com/4dFplHsbkh
— Col James (@ColinJamesTiser) January 6, 2020
Locals are digging in deep, with hundreds of items of clothing donated to help neighbours and friends who lost everything.
The clothing can be picked up from the Parndana Community Hall.
Scores of businesses are also doing their bit. Among them, Parndana Bakery owners Michael and Jenny Lloyd, who have been providing free coffee to firefighters and locals caught up in the fires, including farmers who have been in tears after destroying injured livestock.
The blaze has burnt more than 155,000 hectares inside a 300-kilometre perimeter and authorities are concerned about deteriorating weather conditions later this week.
Work is also underway to restore power supplies with about 600 properties still without electricity.
SA Power Networks says customers may be without services for an extended period while the damage to equipment is determined.
It says only a portion of the affected area has been inspected so far and crews have already identified 12 kilometres of lines brought down. Some mobile phone and landline services in parts of Kangaroo Island are down, with Telstra advising it is working as quickly as possible to restore connections.
Among the first four soldiers to arrive on Kangaroo Island from the 9th Brigade Joint Task Force are @AustralianArmy Reservists Major Carolyn MIller and Lance Corporal Jason Tolotta from the Keswick Barracks in Adelaide. pic.twitter.com/ECVk8traJY
— Col James (@ColinJamesTiser) January 6, 2020
Cooler weather and some rain across the fireground on Saturday and Sunday brought some relief but the Country Fire Service declared a total fire ban for today in the wake of the number of flare-ups and the prospect of rising temperatures from Wednesday.
A large number of homes, farms and other buildings are thought destroyed along with tourism and service infrastructure.
The fire also claimed two lives with outback pilot Dick Lang, 78, and his 43-year-old son Clayton Lang killed when their car became trapped by flames near Parndana.
Spot fires are breaking out on either side of Stokes Bay Rd on Kangaroo Island, one of the areas hardest hit by the weekend's fire, together with one which started in the Lathami Conservation Park on Sunday pic.twitter.com/xMOMVfrCEh
— Col James (@ColinJamesTiser) January 6, 2020
25,000 koalas feared dead in Kangaroo Island fire
Half of Kangaroo Island’s koala population are feared dead in the weekend’s bushfires, and endangered species could be wiped out.
Wildlife rescuers are sweeping the western half of the island for injured animals, many of which are unique to the island environment, including South Australia’s only chlamydia-free koala population.
The fate of echidnas, kangaroos, bandicoots as well as the rare dunnarts and glossy black cockatoos remain unknown as flare ups continued to burn across the island on Sunday.
Kangaroo Island Wildlife Park co-owner Sam Mitchell said the park was expecting hundreds of starving and injured koalas in coming weeks, and extra holding enclosures had been built.
While there have been calls to cull the island’s koalas in recent years, Mr Mitchell said Friday’s bushfire may have killed about half of the 50,000-strong koala population. “We’ve gone from one extreme to the other end,” he said.
“People would talk about koalas being a pest species … but now there are a lot of koalas (which) perished in the fires.”
A GoFundMe page for the park has now raised $388,000 and counting.
The park usually cares for 10 orphaned koalas a year, but is expected to see 10 koalas a day come into their care – most of them with burns injuries.
“There is no food left, for those (animals) who didn’t perish in the fire, a lot of them will starve to death,” Mr Mitchell said. “We will do whatever we can to rehabilitate the native wildlife but it’s going to take years to recover.”
Rick Fisher took 17 koalas to the wildlife park after finding them with burns on the fringes of the fireground. He said many were orphaned infants who didn’t need to be caught but approached him looking for comfort. He also said he had caught some larger males who had tried to bite him.
Several had to be put down because of extensive burns or serious respiratory injuries.
Mr Fisher watched as the flames tore through nearby plantations. “You can only find the injured koalas on the edge of the plantation,” he said
“All the ones inside the ground would have keen killed instantly.”
Livestock caught in paddocks by the fast moving fire didn’t even have an opportunity to stand up but died where they lay, Mr Fisher said, likening the scene to ancient Pompeii where people and animals were frozen in their deaths by a volcanic eruption.
Along the West End Highway, the bodies of hundreds of native animals – including koalas and wallabies – lined the side of the road.
The animals had tried to make a break away from the flames burning in the Flinders Chase National Park but were outrun by the flames.
There were reports of people taking the island’s koalas to Adelaide for help, prompting a warning from the Environment Department not to do so.
Meanwhile, the core habitat for the estimated 300 dunnarts on the western side of the island were razed by Friday’s bushfire and a majority of the camera monitoring sites were burnt. Land for Wildlife Heidi Groffen said it was too early to predict how many were lost but volunteers were looking for small pockets of unburnt habitat.