A dairy farmer on the south coast of New South Wales has shared shocking before and after pictures of his farm after it was razed by fire in just 10 minutes.
Robert Miller from the town of Milton, about an hour north of Bateman’s Bay, raced to save his herd of 1,000 cattle as fire closed in on his farm on New Year’s Day.
‘It hit the farm at 1pm and was all over by 1.10pm, it came through very fast. It was ferocious, it was catastrophic.’ Mr Miller told The Land.
Robert Miller from the town of Milton, about an hour north of Bateman’s Bay, raced to save his herd of 1,000 cattle as fire closed in on his farm on New Year’s Day
‘We had done all the preparation we could have, we had the equipment and water in place but we lost power, so we had to use generators to power everything.’
He led his cattle onto a concrete area where they stood under sprinklers for the duration of the fire passing through.
About half of Mr Millers 322 hectare farm was destroyed in the blaze.
The town of Milton is at the middle of the Currowan bushfire which has merged with two other smaller fires to stretch 100km from Bateman’s Bay to Nowra on the NSW south coast.
Access to electricity and fuel in the town has been affected forcing Mr Miller to dump milk because he can’t power his dairy.
He has also being buying a semi-trailer of hay bales each day to feed his herd due to drought conditions but trucks are now unable to make their deliveries and the bales he already has have been mostly burnt.
The herd is now under threat from starvation and further fires with temperatures expected to rise into the 40s on Saturday.
More than 100 blazes are currently burning across New South Wales.
The massive Green Wattle Creek and Gospers Mountain fires have been downgraded to advice alert level while the Currowan blaze remains at Watch and Act alert.
An Australian Navy ship the HMAS Choule was deployed to the coast off the Victorian border town of Mallacoota on Thursday after residents were forced to seek shelter on a beach.
More than 2,000 firefighters are working to contain bushfires across the state.
An after picture of Mr Millers farm after fire raced through the property destroying more than 160 hectares in less than 10 minutes.
Source: dailymail.co.uk
