Victorians lend helping hand to Kangaroo Island farmers

The Harrow Balmoral Football Netball Club in Victoria's western district is among the latest to have sent about 30 troops to the island as part of a five-day pre-season camp to help farmers repair damaged fences.

"We didn't kick many footballs around," HBFNC life member and prime lamb producer Tim Leeming, Pigeon Ponds, said.

"But we took all our own fencing equipment over and as you can imagine, most of the boys involved in the footy club in this part of the world are either farmers or they've grown up or worked on farmers or they're plumbers or builders so they have really important skills."

The club repaired about 20 kilometres of fencing, undertook a number of odd jobs on the island and raised $10,000 which was donated to AgKI, a group representing farmers on the island.

"It was fairly physically demanding because we wanted to put up as much fencing as we could in the couple of days we were there," Mr Leeming said.

"A lot of us have seen fire but to be honest I don't think I've ever seen that extent of fire or such big fuel loads."

More than 215,000 hectares were burned in the December/January fire - almost half the island - killing thousands of livestock and native animals, destroying infrastructure and fence lines and the livelihoods of dozens of people.

In January, the South Australian government said more than 32,000 livestock, mainly sheep, had perished in the fires.

Kangaroo Island prime lamb producer Rick Morris described the Victorian footballers as the "Harrow fence hangers".

"They were amazing because they started erecting boundary fencing which was very helpful because I just can't physically get to it with all the work I've got to do at the moment," he said.

Mr Morris has lived on Kangaroo Island for most of his life and lost 90 per cent of his property and 400 ewes in the blaze.

But, like true Aussie battler style, he called himself "one of the lucky ones".

"There were a lot of people here that lost up to 7000 or 8000 sheep and their entire properties and infrastructure," Mr Morris said.

"We lost 58 kilometres of fencing and pastures so it's a huge re-build but luckily our house was spared and some infrastructure and most of our sheep we've still got so we've got a base to work with which is fortunate."

In the wake of the fires, Mr Morris said people on the island had been dealing with adversity in different ways, but said support from people as far as Western Australia had been well received.

"What we need is more skilled fencers because it's going to be ongoing for months," he said.

"We've had some amazing donations of hay but we're going to need state and federal government funding to subside the cost of getting hay to the island."

AgKI committee member and Kangaroos Island sheep and cattle farmer Tim Buck said the offering of support had been overwhelming.

He lost all of his pasture in the fires, 70 kilometres of fencing and 400 rolls of hay, infrastructure including a shearing shed and two houses and 3500 sheep and 200 cows and calves.

"It hasn't been uncommon to have 20-30 people on the farm at any given day just doing what needs to be done," Mr Buck said.

"We're starting to gain some momentum now and we're at the point where we're almost full operational and we're getting more fences up.

"Our shearing sheds are all but ordered and while we've got a long way to go, things are starting to happen which is promising because we're seeing things happen."

Harrow Balmoral Football Netball Club president Michael Phelan encouraged other clubs with similar skills and experience to consider a similar trip to bushfire-affected areas.

"It was a confronting experience, we knew it would be, but after we got stuck into what we were there to do we all felt very honoured and privileged to be there," Mr Phelan said.

"What we did was only a small percentage of what they need, but it was a very rewarding experience.

"It was an experience that we'll remember for the rest of our lives so as far as bringing our community together and helping the KI community, it did exactly that."