Five workshops to reduce bush and crop fires across WA’s key grain growing regions

An increase in bushfires in WA’s freshly wrapped-up harvest season has triggered a series of workshops across key grain growing regions to gain real-time knowledge from farmers. Five Fire Harvest Conversations will be held across the Great Southern, Mid West, and Esperance for grain growers to discuss the causes of bushfires and crop fires at harvest. More than 170 fires in the recent grain harvest season, between October and December, were linked to harvesting operations and crops and stubble — a 26 per cent increase on the 2024-25 harvest. Former WA Local Government Association president Karen Chappel AM will lead the workshops with support from the Department of Fire and Emergency Services. Ms Chappel encouraged growers to attend the workshops and contribute their on-farm experiences of fires. “What we’re asking is for the farmers or grain growers, and the contractors, who are living the experience of harvest fires to come to these sessions and have a conversation around what they see is the risks, and how the risks have increased, or how the fires have increased substantially,” she said. “They are the ones living it. They know why. “There might be some simple, practical suggestions that come out of it that everybody can embrace, and then have everyone be a little bit safer. “Every single time one of these fires takes place, lives are put at risk. We have to sit back, and we have to think about it and work out what we can do better.” Each workshop will focus on prevention, prepardness, and practical solutions to reduce the risk of fires across the State’s key grain growing regions. Two WA farmers, Ravensthorpe’s Mark Mudie and Amelup’s Jaxon Peakall, died as a result of bushfires during harvest late last year. “You can’t avoid the lightning strikes — there’s certain things you can’t avoid,” Ms Chappel said. “But if there are things — and this is what the farmers will be able to tell us — they’ll be able to tell us why they see there’s an increasing number of fires. “At the end of it, this isn’t about legislation or compliance, it’s just about having a conversation and seeing what we can all glean from each other, and come out the other end with some practicalities that reduce the number of fires.” GERALDTON DALWALLINU MERREDIN KATANNING ESPERANCE