Recovering from a Forest Fire

Recovering from a Forest Fire

The Indie Projects

You are probably here after watching our video about the devastating forest fire that tore through our property and burned over 25,000 hectares of land in August 2022. What was originally an abundant farm full of fruit trees and a variety of deciduous and evergreen trees now stands blackened and alien.

We estimate up to 80% of the trees are lost - some still standing but dead. The work we already had planned to bring this property back to life has now been doubled as we recover from this fire. Removing dead trees, replanting, replacing irrigation, fixing damaged infrastructure and the biggest job of making the once stunning stone home we’d planned to renovate into a safe space after the fire completely gutted it and caused catastrophic damage to the structure.

If you would like to support us in any way you can it is greatly appreciated. There are a number of ways you can help

If you would prefer to help us with a one-time donation then you can do so here. All progress made at the property will be shown on our YouTube channel so you can see just how much your donation has helped us.

Patreon

You can join us over on Patreon for as little as $1. A recurring Patreon membership gives you access to all of our videos early, as well as newsletters, exclusive merchandise and other patreon benefits in various membership levels.

Volunteer

If getting stuck in physically sounds like something you’d be interested in sometime in the future then please join our free newsletter where we will be posting about volunteering opportunities in the future.

We now face a monumental challenge to begin the clear up after this disaster. There are a number of challenges facing us that we need to work through in order to bring this place back to it’s former glory:

  • Gutting of the ruin. The stone home once house two families and our dream was to bring it back to life so visitors could come and stay on our beautiful property with us. It is safe to say the stone home has suffered catastrophic damage and now stands with heaps of rubble, roofing, and detritus on the bottom floor. We are currently unsure as to whether the structure is even safe enough to build on so we will have to wait and see what professionals make of it

  • Irrigation piping spanned half of the property allowing for bountiful fruit and olive harvests. It has all been destroyed, along with a large amount of fruit trees

  • Removal and replanting of fruit trees. Oranges, apples, peaches, pomegranate, and most notably masses of olive trees have perished across the terraced landscape. It is going to take an immense amount of manpower and time to work through this

  • Electrical wiring and the natural water supply from the mountain has been destroyed

  • 24 acres of eucalyptus forest stands dead on the west side of the property

  • Replacing fencing. 90% of the property was already fenced when we purchased it, which was really important to us as we have goats, chickens and cats living with us. Fencing ensures stray dogs are deterred, as well as hunters. Large portions of the fencing are now crumpled wire on the ground as the wooden fence posts went in the fire

Neither of us have ever experienced a situation like this. This new project was going to be the biggest one of our lives, something we knew would take a lot of time, patience and resilience to work through. Now having to overcome the effects of the fire has meant the challenges we were already prepared to face have been multiplied as we figure out how to move forward.

We greatly appreciate all of the love and support we’ve already received from friends and family during this incredibly difficult time. We are immensely relieved that neither us nor the animals were living on the property when this fire raged through.