{"id":419944,"date":"2025-12-02T17:15:26","date_gmt":"2025-12-02T17:15:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/419944\/"},"modified":"2025-12-02T17:15:26","modified_gmt":"2025-12-02T17:15:26","slug":"mark-mudie-farmer-who-died-in-west-river-bushfire-identified-as-shire-of-ravensthorpe-deputy-president","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/419944\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark Mudie: Farmer who died in West River bushfire identified as Shire of Ravensthorpe deputy president"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"css-9cqv6l-StyledPNParagraph e8utp6u0\">A farmer who died saving his beloved family farm from a bushfire has been identified as respected community member and Shire of Ravensthorpe deputy president Mark Mudie.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-9cqv6l-StyledPNParagraph e8utp6u0\">Mr Mudie was operating a front-end loader in a desperate attempt to establish a firebreak in West River, near Ravensthorpe, when it became engulfed in flames on Monday afternoon.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-9cqv6l-StyledPNParagraph e8utp6u0\">Mr Mudie, the deputy president of the Shire of Ravensthorpe, could not be saved and died at the scene<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-9cqv6l-StyledPNParagraph e8utp6u0\">Police said an investigation into Mr Mudie\u2019s death would be conducted by WA Police, who will prepare a report for the coroner.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-9cqv6l-StyledPNParagraph e8utp6u0\">Mr Mudie, a Ravensthorpe local, worked on his family farm with his wife, Elaine, and son Nathan, where they farmed across 7000ha of arable land.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/1418433d0b49a1029b683a0aab10ce18d7c68209.jpg\" alt=\"Mr Mudie, a Ravensthorpe local, worked on his family farm with his wife, Elaine, and son Nathan, where they farmed across 7000ha of arable land.\" class=\"css-16r7l45-StyledImage en5ut4d0\"\/>Camera IconMr Mudie, a Ravensthorpe local, worked on his family farm with his wife, Elaine, and son Nathan, where they farmed across 7000ha of arable land. Credit: Mark Mudie\/X\/supplied<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-9cqv6l-StyledPNParagraph e8utp6u0\">Mr Mudie was elected the Shire\u2019s Deputy President in October 2023 with his term set to end in 2027.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-9cqv6l-StyledPNParagraph e8utp6u0\">He was a member of the council\u2019s audit committee, bushfire advisory committee, community stakeholder consultative committee and CEO performance review.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-9cqv6l-StyledPNParagraph e8utp6u0\">He was also part of the Great Southern Road group, North Ravensthorpe community group and WALGA Great Southern Country Zone committee.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-9cqv6l-StyledPNParagraph e8utp6u0\">The Shire of Ravensthorpe said it was \u201cdevastated by the death of a local man at the West River fire yesterday afternoon\u201d.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/35ad87e7675241b137e87547106113edf3d6f9c6.jpg\" alt=\"The fireground remains smouldering. \" class=\"css-16r7l45-StyledImage en5ut4d0\"\/>Camera IconThe fireground remains smouldering.  Credit: Jacki Elezovich<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-9cqv6l-StyledPNParagraph e8utp6u0\">\u201cOur thoughts are with his family and friends, and also all emergency services still working on the fire,\u201d the statement said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-9cqv6l-StyledPNParagraph e8utp6u0\">\u201cWA Police are now investigating.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-9cqv6l-StyledPNParagraph e8utp6u0\">\u201cThe Shire of Ravensthorpe will not be commenting further at this stage.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-9cqv6l-StyledPNParagraph e8utp6u0\">The cause of the fire, which is understood to have started on Mr Mudie\u2019s property, is under investigation but is not being treated as suspicious<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-9cqv6l-StyledPNParagraph e8utp6u0\">Mr Mudie\u2019s death comes almost two years after volunteer firefighter Harry Stead died battling a blaze on his neighbour\u2019s property in Coomalbidgup, about 60km west of Esperance, on Boxing Day in 2023.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A farmer who died saving his beloved family farm from a bushfire has been identified as respected community&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":419945,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4740,164887,50,143129,8632],"class_list":{"0":"post-419944","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-australia","9":"tag-bushfires","10":"tag-news","11":"tag-regional-news","12":"tag-wa-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419944","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=419944"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419944\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/419945"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=419944"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=419944"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=419944"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}