Upper Murray landslides set farmers back time and again after summer bushfire crisis

They know it's only a matter of time before flash floods spew bushfire debris onto their properties.

The unprecedented scale of the summer bushfire crisis in the Upper Murray left a barren, charred and splintered landscape, capable of expelling rocks, sand and silt for kilometres under the right conditions.

Almost 12 months since the emergency, Upper Murray farmers struggling to rebuild their lives and livelihoods are still battling devastating landslides with every big rainfall.

Biggara, Thowgla and Nariel Valley landholders have had roads blocked by rivers of rock coming down the mountains; new fences put up in the bushfire recovery have been simply buried.

At Cudgewa, flooding after last month's rain threatened a new wool shed that was spared from the bushfires and with it the spring wool clip.

Landowners adjoining a national park, state forests and crown land are forking out thousands of dollars in equipment and time to mop up the mess generated by a monumental erosion problem stemming from the bushfires.

There is no end in sight for some.

Third-generation Biggara farmer Greg Wild's property, which adjoins Biggara Reserve (vacant land), has been a dumping ground for debris washed out of two gullies - starting in the reserve and running kilometres through his farm - after every big rainfall since the bushfires.

"Erosion from the steep part of the mountain blocked my driveway for weeks and half-filled a shed not long after the fires," he said.

"Since that initial major landslide the Upper Murray Road has been blocked four or five times, which has been cleared by Towong council workers.

"The stuff that ended up near my house, I've spread out and made a track and levelled out the nearby paddock, which raised it half a metre.

"If you go up into the bush, the gully is metres deeper and wider than it used to be.

"Every time we get rain it fills up and overflows; there are two-metre waves every time we get an inch of rain in a short period."

Mr Wild said his neighbours were in the same boat.

"My neighbours have had similar problems with their irrigation bays and channels filled up two or three times with debris," Mr Wild said.

"It's happened at Thowgla every time there's a downpour.

"It won't go away until it's fixed; it's one of my biggest jobs this year and it's all unpaid work.

"Immediately after the bushfires I put up a boundary fence and the overflowing gully just buried it with debris."

Mr Wild bought a 90 horsepower loader to fill in some of the erosion and had put more than 200 hours' work into it.

He said recurrent landslides had already washed away newly-made tracks and - unlike bushfires - insurance didn't cover any damage.

"The problem hasn't been addressed at the source of it," Mr Wild said.

"The trees break up the mountain; now there's nothing to hold the mountain together."

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Cudgewa cattle producer and woolgrower Alice Albert said their new wool shed and temporary housing units were threatened by flooding last month.

She said after every big rainfall this year massive volumes of water and silt overflowed from the creeks running through their property.

"We had hay bales six-foot-high and the water picked them up and carried them away like little boats," she said.

"We back on to the national park and every time the water comes down the mountain out of Bluff Falls, it runs through the Stony Creek and into the Cudgewa Creek.

"There's nothing holding the water back; the blackberries have all gone, the timber is all gone."

Having already lost their home of nearly 40 years and the backbone of their breeding operation (200 fine-wool Merino ewes and four stud rams) in the summer bushfires, Mrs Albert said they were now being rocked by landslides, altogether too often.

She said every time it rained the property was cut off for a few hours.

"We have always been flooded in and out but not as frequently as we are now," Mrs Albert said.

Together with husband Greg, Mrs Albert said they had put up electric fencing in the national park on their own time years ago when there was a wild dog problem.

She said while there was financial help for fencing materials, labour was an issue.

"When the kids were little, my husband and me would put them on the school bus, pack a picnic and go up fencing in the national park for the day," Mrs Albert said.

"Now we're 61 and 67 years old, I don't know how we could be expected to do that."

Mr Wild said government funding would go some way to alleviating the problem for landholders throughout the valley.

He believed a broken granite wall in the gullies would divert some water and catch much of the erosion.

"Most people who had significant damage out of the bushfires got $75,000 in aid," he said.

"The magnitude of the erosion disaster would warrant another $75,000.

"Everyone with a gully on their property in this little area is suffering from the problem.

"We got every one of these heavy storms that hit this year.

"Thowgla has definitely had their share of them."

A Biggara fire captain and training officer two decades ago, Mr Wild said mismanagement of public land over many years was partly to blame for the scale of the summer bushfire crisis.

He said the situation was not a "natural occurrence".

"I have never seen anything like these fires," Mr Wild said.

"It was like a big, brown cloud and we didn't have a hope of putting it out.

"I saved my house and lost a shed; everything burnt but 40 acres on the river flats.

"You wouldn't believe the kangaroos on my front lawn; the loss of wildlife was devastating.

"I had a couple of pairs of lyrebirds up in the gully; they used to compete with each other because they're show-offs. But they couldn't have survived it. We need to be better at all of this!"

Despite the challenging year, Mr Wild never imagined himself anywhere else.

"I love the place," he said.

"I've got everything that people would ever wish to have in life. I can go and sit at the river or have a swim in the summer.

"They'll have to carry me out of here."