{"id":71658,"date":"2026-08-14T03:22:12","date_gmt":"2026-08-14T03:22:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/71658\/"},"modified":"2026-08-14T03:22:12","modified_gmt":"2026-08-14T03:22:12","slug":"kimberley-station-owner-fights-horrendous-suspiciously-lit-fires","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/71658\/","title":{"rendered":"Kimberley station owner fights ‘horrendous’ suspiciously lit fires"},"content":{"rendered":"

Authorities and station owners in Western Australia’s north have been battling at least seven suspiciously lit bushfires this week, with one coming dangerously close to a popular tourist retreat.<\/p>\n

Several of the fires impacted Barn Hill Station, 2,000 kilometres north of Perth, threatening lives, animals and infrastructure.<\/p>\n

Barn Hill Station owner Janice Bell said she received phone calls on Wednesday morning from truck drivers on the highway, alerting her to multiple flare-ups.<\/p>\n

\"bushfire<\/p>\n

Barn Hill Station owner Janice Bell says the experience of trying to manage suspicious blazes has been horrendous.\u00a0 (Supplied\u00a0)<\/p>\n

Barn Hill Station is situated within the broader Thangoo Station, also run by Ms Bell, spanning roughly 450,000 acres.<\/p>\n

Upon assessing the situation, she discovered three fires had been suspiciously lit at 20-kilometre intervals.<\/p>\n

“You can understand a lightning strike or a burn-off that’s gotten away,” Ms Bell said.<\/p>\n

“But when someone lights three fires in a row at those small intervals, that’s not nice \u2014 that’s nasty work.”<\/p>\n

Ms Bell said the station’s ordinary firebreaks were no match for the multiple blazes, especially considering the day’s dry conditions and strong easterly winds.<\/p>\n

\"plumes<\/p>\n

Police are investigating the suspiciously lit fires.\u00a0 (Supplied)<\/p>\n

“The fires travelled to the coast, which is 10km, in a very short matter of time,” she said.<\/p>\n

“We have firebreaks in place, but there’s no effect on the speed these fires were moving and three fires \u2014 normally you would have all your resources on one fire, but when you have three it’s just ridiculous.”<\/p>\n

Ms Bell said an upsetting consequence of fires can be putting animals down, including domestic animals and wildlife like wallabies and lizards.<\/p>\n

The Department of Fire and Emergency Services (DFES) issued a Watch and Act alert for residents and travellers on Wednesday, but the fires have since been brought under control.<\/p>\n

‘Running amok’<\/p>\n

Nearby at Anna Plains station workers were busy on Wednesday and Thursday battling the out-of-control blaze, backburning, grading, and putting water on spot fires.<\/p>\n

Station manager David Stoate said the weather conditions were not ideal.<\/p>\n

“By the time we got out to the highway, it was already out of control,” he said.<\/p>\n

“It had unfortunately already got away, so it’s just a matter of trying to contain it now as best we can.”<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

David Stoate is the owner of Anna Plains Station. (ABC News: Alys Marshall)<\/p>\n

The fire was about 15km north of the station homestead by Thursday morning, so was not considered a threat.<\/p>\n

Those fighting the blaze were focused on protecting yards, fences, and pasture for cattle.<\/p>\n

“I suspect it’s the same person just running amok on a very windy day,” Mr Stoate said.<\/p>\n

“Hopefully [police] can hold someone to account for this because it’ll end up costing us a lot of resources.”<\/p>\n

Suspicious fires on the rise<\/p>\n

DFES Kimberley superintendent Glenn Hall said responding to incidents of this nature put an unnecessary strain on already stretched resources.<\/p>\n

\"Glenn<\/p>\n

Glenn Hall from DFES says there has been a rise is suspicious bushfires in the region.\u00a0 (ABC News: Herlyn Kaur)<\/p>\n

“It is taxing, most of the response we provide to the community come from volunteer firefighters and other emergency services volunteers,” he said.<\/p>\n

“Over 36 hours we’ve had seven separate ignition points along the Great Northern Highway \u2026 I certainly can’t remember a time where we’ve had that amount of suspicious ignitions in such a short space of time.”<\/p>\n

Mr Hall said he had noticed an overall increase in the number of suspiciously lit fires in the Kimberley this season.<\/p>\n

He said this could pose additional risks during the busy tourist season, with an influx of people visiting the area.<\/p>\n

“It’s important to be up-to-date with what’s going on in case you need to move quickly or prevent new travel as a result,” Mr Hall said.<\/p>\n

Kimberley Police are investigating the string of fires lit between Eco Beach and Anna Plains, which include the Barn Hill fires.<\/p>\n

They have offered a $25,000 reward for information that leads to the conviction of an arsonist.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Authorities and station owners in Western Australia’s north have been battling at least seven suspiciously lit bushfires this…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":71659,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[22,21,99788,5715,5095,99791,99790,99786,99789,5824,99787],"class_list":["post-71658","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-austrlia","tag-barn-hill-station","tag-bushfire","tag-department-of-fire-and-emergency-services","tag-fire-season","tag-glenn-hall","tag-great-northern-highway","tag-janice-bell","tag-kimberley","tag-suspicious-fires"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71658","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71658"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71658\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71659"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71658"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71658"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71658"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}