Bushfires have killed livestock and damaged several agricultural properties in central Queensland.
Fire services are urging producers to keep vigilant and postpone hazard-reduction burns.
Just one week into spring, Kat Kirk was fighting to protect her livestock from a bushfire.
The hobby farmer was struck by how quickly the fire spread on her 15 hectare property in Port Curtis, just outside Rockhampton.
By the time fire crews were able to control it, Ms Kirk had lost a coop of breeding chickens and the fire burnt all but half a hectare of her land.
Ms Kirk was one of several producers in central Queensland caught off guard by the fires so early in the season.
Since September 1, multiple bushfires have occurred through the central Queensland region with the Queensland Fire Department issuing Watch and Act advice alerts for eight blazes.
The 2026 winter was Queensland's driest in six years, with rainfall across central Queensland well below average, according to the Bureau of Meteorology.
Rockhampton Rural Fire Service area manager Matthew Eckhardt said spring was usually busy, but the past few weeks had left his team "fatigued".
Egg producer Debbie-Jo MacDonald, based 20 kilometres north of Ms Kirk, said while she was relieved her property was mostly spared from fire damage earlier this month, she was caught off guard.
At Gladstone, more than 100 kilometres south of Rockhampton, the main irrigation pump on Tony and Coleen McCray's vineyard was destroyed when multiple fires surrounded their property on September 3.