Farmers and the Forestry Corporation of NSW are counting the cost of a fire in southern NSW. Sources: ABC Rural, ABC News,The Daily Advertiser
About 5000 hectares of pines have been destroyed in the blaze near the Murraguldrie State Forest in the Riverina Highlands.
Humula landholder Clint Wilkinson is trying to be upbeat despite losing stock and major investments in private pines.
“We have probably lost our superannuation, we’ve lost private plantations of pines, it would be about 40,000 pines at the 27-year-old mark.
“Planning one day at a time at this stage.”
The Forestry Corporation said trees older than 12 years should be harvestable, but anything younger will have been destroyed by the fires.
“The older the trees are, the more resistant they are to fire and the more products you can get out of them.
The devastation of the Minnimbah bushfire has the potential to impact the economies of the nearby towns of Tumut and Tumbarumba in New South Wales.
The timber industry is a significant part of both communities.
Large swathes of pine plantation in the Murraguldrie State Forest have been wiped out by the out of control inferno, potentially devastating significant parts of the region’s supply.
Tumut mayor Trina Thomson is hopeful the damage caused won’t be too crippling to the supply of timber to the town’s paper mills, though admits there is some cause for worry.
“Of course there is concern, because the timber industry plays an enormous part in our economy and workforce,” she said.
“Not just in relation to Visy, we have other mills as well.
“One of the things we learned from the fires a number of years ago is that if it’s not completely burnt out, you can still harvest timber within a timeframe.
“So that’s one of the things that we know, if it hasn’t been completely destroyed there may be the potential to salvage some of it.”
In Tumbarumba, logging and forestry are significant parts of the town’s economic base. But the town’s mayor, Ian Chaffey, is remaining upbeat despite the destruction.
“Any loss of resource is a concern, but I think we’ve got to put it into perspective,” he said.
“You’re probably looking at 70-80,000 hectares of pine in the area.
“If the timber’s millable, it won’t be lost.”
Cr Chaffey said that so long as the significant plantations in the Green Hills area remained untouched by the fire, the damage to Tumbarumba’s timber industry shouldn’t be too great.
