General News
28 February, 2026
Ken Hateley unsure about his fire damaged paddocks
Ken Hateley stands on the tiny remaining piece of land surrounding his home that escaped the January 9 Grass Flat fire.
He is grateful his house is still standing, but like many of his neighbours, he is facing an uncertain future.
“This is all I’ve got left,” he said, looking at the scorched paddocks surrounding his house.
"Sometimes I feel a bit guilty because others lost more.”
While it’s a month on from the fire and recovery is underway, the question facing farmers is what they can expect from the scorched earth.
Ken is one of them; he is unsure how productive his soil will be.
A share farmer, he breeds sheep and grows wheat and barley on about 200 hectares a year.
“But how do we get the land to produce again?” he said.
“I don't know, and I don’t think anyone does.
“It’s so soft from the heat that I can’t drive on a lot of it, and every windy day we lose more topsoil."
Farmers in the region who have had past fires agreed that it is a great unknown and heartbreaking, too.
"You spend years working to get your soil to the best you can, and to have this happen is heartbreaking,” he said.
"It can take years to come back, but in some cases it can recover quickly; it is the unknown.”
But Ken isn’t sitting still; he’s testing some of his grain to see if it will germinate or if the heat has destroyed it.
So far, none has shown any growth, so he is doubtful there will be any he can use for growing; only time will tell, he says.
“Even before planting my crops, I have to get something in the ground to hold it down,” he said.
“I can’t let it all blow away.”
Blaze Aid has erected about three kilometres of boundary fencing to keep his sheep in, but the internal fences will have to wait for later, he says.
“I’m just a small operator compared to some of the blokes down the road,” he said.
“One of them has 100 kilometres of fencing gone.
“I can’t speak highly of the volunteers from Blaze Aid, they are amazing, and what is so surprising, they love doing it.
“I can’t thank them enough.”
While the fencing will now keep the sheep in, the 80 or more that died in the fire are not far from his mind.
“I stopped counting at about 80, and I was getting a bit emotional and running out of bullets,” he said.
“I went across the road to move the ewes out of the stubble and as quick as I put water on the fire around them, it [the fire] sprang up behind me. No one could have put that fire out.
“I’ve never seen anything like it.”
The fire swept across the paddocks, around and underneath the grain silos, "but never caught the grain alight," he said, shaking his head.
While it was a terrible experience, he had a job to do and had to concentrate on that.
“I suppose it’s the adrenaline,” he said.
“I only had myself to worry about, and I had a plan.”
With one of the worst fire days on record predicted, Ken was on the lookout on January 9.
When he saw the smoke at Grass Flat around lunchtime, he sent his wife into Horsham, but with the phones down and no contact, he wasn't sure if she’d made it.
“ I just had to hope she was safe in Horsham,” he said.
As he went to the sheds to get his farm fire units ready, the fire reached his place in what he said seemed like minutes.
He said the extreme heat and the wind will be something he’ll never forget.
Looking ahead, he knows he has a lot to do, but he has been overwhelmed by people's kindness.
“Look at this hay I have here," he said.
“It’s coming from all over the place, Lucindale, Bordertown, and Hamilton, and I wanted some addresses so I could write and thank them all, but the guys delivering the hay said no thanks were necessary.
“It’s good hay too.”
Ken praised his neighbour, Brian Klowss.
“Brian is doing a great job; I take my hat off to him,” he said.
“He’s called in to see me several times just to check how I’m going; even though he’s lost a lot too.
“I’ve had friends ring me and drive quite a distance to come and help me, and I think I’m having a retired serviceman come to help me catch the rams and move them in a few days.”
He’s given the melted and buckled iron fencing droppers to the Natimuk Lions, and the money they make from them will stay in the town.
"Just this week, someone rang me up and offered a whole heap of railway iron I can use for posts," he said.
"Can you believe it?"
He knows there are grants and insurance to take care of, but like many, the outside work in recovery takes up most of his time.
Will he give up farming?
“No. It's the life I’ve led, and I love it,” he said.
“What would I do?
“I have interests but no hobbies that would keep me occupied.
“No, I’ll stay farming.
"But we need controlled burning. I slash around my place, but we need more.”
For now, he has to keep his sheep alive and stabilise the soil so it doesn’t blow away.
“I think March and April will be tough,” he said.
"But farming is a way of life, and I’m here to stay. I just have to cover the ground somehow, and we have to learn from this.
"When the communication went down, we just had to do what we knew.”
Despite his own challenges in recovery, he had time to congratulate the firefighters, especially the farmers who used their own equipment to plough breaks and helped contain the fire.
"Amazing what they did," he said.
"Make sure you have a look at my letterbox when you leave.
“The fire was blown into the letter box by the extreme wind and blew the back off," he said with a shrug.
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