Lack of land clearing blamed for destructive fires
A MAREEBA Shire farmer has had a devastating start to his annual mango harvest with a fast-moving bushfire wiping out a significant portion of his crop.
Matt Fealy of Blue Sky Produce grows mangoes, avocados and limes at his Paddys Green property, west of Mareeba, all of which have suffered varied amounts of damage from the blaze that broke out last Monday.
Initially burning at a distance down the road from his property, he said the fire quickly spread, jumping the road and making its way on to his farm. Firefighters did some backburning in the area in an effort to contain the blaze, but hot weather and strong winds continued to fuel to fire.
“It got real close, it came within about four rows of the house,” Mr Fealy said.
“We suffered loss of trees, fruit and (about 450m of) irrigation that we had just replaced.”
Mr Fealy said up to about 200 mango trees had received burns, along with about 50 avocado trees and 10 lime trees.
“We were going to start picking on Monday, but I pushed it back one week so we would have been in that paddock with 25 workers,” he said.
“So we’re pretty lucky really … it could have been a hell of a lot worse.”
Mr Fealy said tough rules and regulations around land clearing had played a big part in the fire.