Fraught Kangaroo Islanders divided over a burning question

On Kangaroo Island, the divisive issue is whether its forest industry played a role in last summer’s bushfires regarding fuel load.

Kangaroo Island farmer Sam Mumford lost four farms, 747 cattle, 3445 sheep, 100km of fencing and two houses to fires. Picture: Sean McGowan

The toll from the first fire was bad enough; the impact of the second was enormous. On December 20 last year, Kangaroo Island farmer Sam Mumford lost his first property. The second fire that came out of Flinders Chase on January 3 Mr Mumford describes as “an absolute inferno”.

“We lost three farms that night. It was unstoppable,” he said. “There’s a weather station at Parndana and the last reading on it ­before it died was a temperature of 547C and winds of 88 knots.”

By the end of the summer, Mr Mumford had lost four farms, 747 cattle, 3445 sheep, 100km of fencing, two houses and several sheds.

He found one flock of 647 sheep huddled against a plantation of pine trees. He had to shoot four but the rest were dead.

Only one-third had burn marks — the rest suffocated from fumes.

With the bushfire royal commission opening this week with evidence from climate change scientists and meteorologists, farmers hope it will soon get to more logistical and practical questions involving land clearing, native vegetation laws and what on Kangaroo Island is the divisive issue; whether its forest industry played a role regarding fuel load.

Forestry was the biggest victim of the summer fires, with about $850m in timber damaged or ­destroyed and 95 per cent of plantations lost: its insurance claims will be the biggest single payout from the 2019-20 fires.

The forestry industry bristles at suggestions its tracts of blue gum and pine forests contributed to the disaster. Kangaroo Island Plantation Timbers has been pushing to build a deepwater seaport at Smith Bay on the island’s north coast for processed timber exports, creating 230 jobs and giving the ­island a new industry to help end its reliance on agriculture and tourism, both of which have been smashed by fires and COVID-19.

Yet some locals and farmers, including Mayor Michael Pengilly, still question whether forestry had a role in creating a fuel load problem made worse by what he calls greens-­inspired laws stopping farmers and council from effective clearing. “There is no doubt the KI plantations of both pine and blue gums acted as a giant incendiary device,” he said. “That, along with hundreds of kilometres of roadside vegetation unable to be strategically burnt because of the Native Vegetation Act in SA.”

Kangaroo Island Plantation Timbers managing director Keith Lamb says of all land burned, plantation forestry made up 7 per cent. “It does not make sense to say forestry is a giant wick and the other 93 per cent of the island that was burnt was somehow caused by that 7 per cent.”

Mr Mumford believes the chief problem is land management and clearing. “There was simply too much growth across the board that we had been unable to manage.”