Australia Weather News

The damage bill from bushfires burning through Queensland and northern New South Wales has hit $145 million.

The Insurance Council of Australia said insurers had handled 1,340 bushfire-related claims so far for the November disasters.

"This is for the entire November bush fire area, which stretches from the New South Wales mid north coast into the Gold Coast in Queensland and also the Yeppoon region," spokesman Campbell Fuller said.

"We are expecting many more claims to flow through over the next few days and weeks.

"Just in the past 24 hours, there's been nearly 100 new claims and over the past week we've seen well over 1,000 claims."

Central Qld agricultural damage worst in recent history

The Department of Agriculture and Fisheries said a central Queensland blaze at Cobraball had the biggest impact on agriculture in recent history.

It destroyed 15 homes and burnt through more than 12,000 hectares of land, including 230 hectares of high-value horticulture crops, such as pineapple, mango, and lychee.

The Department estimated a $20 million bill so far for farms in that region, including loss of production, fencing, pipes, machinery and other infrastructure damage.

Further south, the bushfire on the Darling Downs at Pechey has burnt through almost 20,000 hectares of land and destroyed four homes, a rural building and several sheds in the Ravensbourne area.

Meanwhile, one house and five dwellings were destroyed in blazes on the Sunshine Coast.

Hundreds of farm animals perish

Anthony Sylvester runs a free-range egg farm near Lake Mary, just north of Cobraball.

He has 3,000 chickens left — about 400 died in the fire.

"We had fire pretty much impact all of our sheds bar one," he said.

Mr Sylvester is a rural firefighter and was out on the fire ground battling the blaze with his local crew.

He only got time to assess the damage on his own property four days after the fire had passed through.

He said it was a devastating scene to come home to.

"It is gut wrenching," he said.

"You get them at a point of [being a] lay chicken and you look after them and you find them like that — it's tough.

"We look after them as best we can but it's just one of those events.

"Neighbours had lost cattle in the paddock in similar situations, they just couldn't get out.

"The fire was just too quick."

Mr Sylvester said it will take almost a year to get back to normal production.

"To replace those chooks it's not an easy task ... you got to get them booked in and ordered and they take up to five months to get them, then another eight weeks before they start laying.

"I'm hoping that we come out not too bad over the coming months it could have been a lot worse. There are others that are in a lot worse situation than I'm in," he said.

Natural disaster's cost on the economy

Fire authorities are warning severe and catastrophic bushfire events are expected to continue.

Central Queensland University Professor of Economics John Rolfe said there were three specific impacts hitting the economy at the moment.

Property and the cost of replacing it, the operational cost of fighting fires, and income losses over time.

"Most people will have also had losses in terms of their operations and may have had losses in terms of their future productivity, so those are things that will be ongoing costs at an economy level."

Professor Rolfe said ensuring the community begins rebuilding, and getting operations back on track quickly, is key.

"At a government level, making sure that there's money quickly back in an economy — there's a quick process to get rebuilding — really helps to make sure that rebound effect is positive."