Talk of the Town: Who is compensating graziers for fires spreading from highway corridors?

This fire started 20 kilometres east of Mount Isa along the Barkly Highway, a highway that splits our property down the middle.

We were experiencing "the best season in 50 years", the grass had dried off and we were looking into buying cattle.

Until the fire started.

A vehicle travelling along the highway sparked a grassfire when a wheel bearing caught fire, burning along the highway corridor before burning onto our property to the north.

After days of working to control the fire, it burnt out; but a second fire had ignited along the south side of the highway burning south.

After burning over 22,000 hectares of grazing land, it continues to burn today (October 26) heading for Mount Isa.

While graziers can reduce the impact of fires moving from highway corridors to adjoining properties by fire break lines, and relocating or increasing stock to minimise the fuel load on their properties, it is Transport and Main Roads responsible for reducing fuel loads on highway corridors.

During the cooler months you'll see TMR slashing one line of grass adjacent the highway, but that is it, no reduction burns, no cool burning.

While the country between Mount Isa and Cloncurry is hilly, there are still many places along the Barkly Highway corridor that could have more than one line of grass slashed to further reduce fuel loads, but they aren't.

The North West Rural Fire Service Area director Shane Hopter said he had seen "a number of fires along roadways" during September.

"Areas that aren't managed by the Fire Warden Network including road corridors, where burns haven't been completed, is where we are still seeing an increase of fires."

So when fires start from excessive grass on highways that burn onto adjoining properties, does that make TMR responsible? the government responsible?

Who is going to pay graziers compensation for the grass they lost? the cattle they lost? fences and infrastructure lost? the machinery and fuel costs to fight the fire? Hiring more machinery and contractors to help control the fire? What about the mental load?

Because while I am sitting in a house looking after our children, my husband, his dad and our crew have been getting home anywhere between 10pm to 1am grappling to get a fire under control.

Returning home every night smelling of smoke, covered in ash, exhausted, dehydrated and saying "the fire was burning 100 metres a minute".

And we are not the only ones facing this problem.

Further west along the Barkly Highway, on the other side of the border into the Northern Territory a fire has been burning for well over five weeks, destroying prime cattle country more than five times the size of the ACT.

Graziers there have been fighting the same battle my family is fighting - not just against the flames but also against bureaucracy.

Who is going to compensate graziers, for the government's incompetence?

- Talk of the Town is a weekly opinion piece written by ACM journalists. The thoughts expressed are their own.