Bushfire recovery: Troy and Nette Fischer’s booming business

Six years after bushfire ravaged their farm, Troy and Nette Fischer have more than doubled their business in its wake.

Nette Fisher with husband Troy and daughters Elke, 2, Indigo, 7, and Isabelle, 9, at their Fisher farm in 2018. Picture: Tom Huntley

In 2015 Troy and Nette Fischer lost almost their entire business after a fast and devastating bush fire ravaged their farm in Pinery, South Australia.

Now six years later, the Fischer’s have rebuilt to levels they would not have thought possible prior to the tragedy.

“We’ve tripled the size of our business including the area that we farm now,” Nette said.

“We’ve got double the number of sheep we had before the fire and we feel really proud of where we’ve come from,” she said.

Known as the Pinery fire, the bush fire burnt 86,000 hectares across six districts in one afternoon, destroying 35 homes and damaged 42 others.

Fortunately the Fischer’s family home was spared but their business, Ashmore White Suffolks stud, along with 25 years of breeding, was ruined.

“We lost all of our breeding ewes, around 40km of fencing, the machinery shed and quite a few machines and 1000 rolls of hay,” Troy said.

“It was a bit of a crossroad for us. We had to decide do we walk away from that as an enterprise or do we try to rebuild it,” he said.

The Fischers have more than doubled their business since the fire, now running 1200 breeding ewes. Picture: Tom Huntley

Before the fire the Fischer’s operated on around 440ha, running 500 breeding ewes and selling around 200 rams every year.

Following their massive rebuild, the Fischer’s now run 1200 breeding ewes across 1200ha and sell roughly 500 rams annually.

“It was obviously heartbreaking for us to have to put all our sheep in a pit but the other end of that tunnel is what we had to focus on. We wanted to get back on our feet and get business going again,” Troy said.

“It was a clean slate and a bit of an opportunity to start again and build things the way that we wanted and that part was exciting,” Nette said.

The Fischer’s will be sharing their bushfire recovery story at the Gippsland Red Meat Conference in February.