Two years on: Sheep becomes sole focus at Heinrichs after fires

Jamie Heinrich, who farms with parents Andrew and Tracie, lost his home block in the fires, along with about 50 cows and 250 prime lambs.

His house was almost saved, but smoke and water damage meant it still had to be gutted, along with a roof replacement.

Farm infrastructure and machinery also had to be replaced, along with 30 kilometres of fencing, while Jamie said they had an arborist in to see how many trees could be saved.

"The house is surrounded by trees, and they all got burnt," he said.

"But we wanted to save as many as we could."

Jamie moved back into his house in December.

He has planted kikuyu around the house and property, and has chosen fire-retardant plants for his garden.

"The kikuyu was amazing during the fires," he said.

"We had fresh kikuyu in the corner of the farm where the fire first hit and it helped to slow the fire."

The Heinrichs have about 40 per cent of their 900-hectare farm sown to kikuyu.

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After losing most of their closed cattle herd in the fires, the Heinrichs decided to not continue breeding them to further focus on their sheep operation.

"It is our main business, and we are extremely lucky we didn't lose any of our stud ewes," Jamie said.

Ella Matta was the first registered White Suffolk stud in the world and has the number one spot in the Australian stud book.

Jamie said they will forever be "extremely grateful" to those that helped protect their flock.

They have just spent the past month joining the flock, through AI, embryo transfers, and then pen mating.

"We are AI-ing close to 1000 ewes this year across the three breeds," Jamie said.

"We have had a pretty good spring, so hopefully we get some good numbers."

The property received up to an inch of rain late last month, which they say will hinder their dry paddock feed but certainly help their kikuyu - a vital feed source during the summer months.

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Jamie, who is chairman of Agriculture KI - the island's peak farmer representative group - said local farmers were pushing for more fire tracks in the nearby national parks to reduce the fire risk and ferocity.

"It would be good if firefighters could get access to these fires when they first start and get on top of them quicker, before they (fire outbreaks) get as crazy as they did that summer (of 2019-20)," he said.

"Then more cold burning is second priority.

"This is the worst fire this island has ever seen, so we need to learn from what happened and prevent one of that magnitude again.

"We are also looking forward to having the plantations turned back into farmland, which will also help to reduce the risk."

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