Covering an area of 93,179 square kilometres between Norseman and Eucla, the Shire of Dundas is home to just under 700 residents.
The outback council is nestled in the world's largest intact temperate woodland ecosystem, the Great Western Woodlands and grasslands of the Nullarbor Plain.
Weathering hot summers and very little rainfall over long periods of time, parts of the flat, desert country have turned into a dry tinderbox waiting to ignite.
When a fire does break out however, there is no active local volunteer bushfire brigade, and limited resources and money available, to help the Shire of Dundas fight it.
Now, and as bushfire threats intensify, the council is calling for better support and guaranteed annual funding, so fires in the area can be managed more efficiently.
It comes after a bushfire near Balladonia on the Nullarbor Plain forced the Eyre Highway, which is WA's main freight route, to close for at least 48 hours last month.
Since 2018, the highway has been shut at least two times a year due to road accidents, flooding and bushfire related incidents, with three closures so far in 2024.
Each day the vital west-east link is cut off is estimated to cost agricultural and freight industries millions of dollars.
"I've spent a lot of time in the bush and it is beautiful, but when it burns it becomes extremely dangerous."
The Shire of Dundas is responsible for fighting fires on Crown land within its area, despite not having any other tenure over the land.
In the last financial year, the council collected about $75,000 in local government rates, which were paid to the Department of Fire and Emergency Services (DFES) emergency services levy (ESL).
The ESL fund pays for the delivery of critical and life-saving emergency services across WA and is allocated to ensure emergency resources are available to address risks as efficiently and effectively as possible.
It raised $419 million in 2022-23, including $388m from ratepayers, however Shire of Dundas chief executive officer Peter Fitchat said council was handed back only $23,300 of its $75,000 contribution.
Mr Fitchat said it was a drop in the bucket compared to unbudgeted dollars of anywhere between $75,000 to $300,000 it had spent fighting fires each year.
Up until 2018, the Shire was forced to take those funds from its annual budget allocation for footpaths and drainage.
"Footpaths and drainage was one of the community's biggest complaints," Mr Fitchat said.
"But I didn't have the budget for it because that money had to be spent fighting bushfires it was an absolute mess.
"In 2019, we were audited because legally we cannot spend more than $5000 unbudgeted on an item.
"The problem is, how do we budget for a bushfire when we don't know when it will happen, how long it will burn for and how many machines we will need to fight it?"
Costs involved with fighting the fires weren't the only issue, attracting volunteers to the rural bushfire brigade have also proved challenging.
Mr Fitchat put this down to the different layers of ownership across the Shire's vast bushland including pastoral and mining leases, indigenous protected areas, Crown land, parks and reserves.
"People don't want to volunteer because of the bush and the different layers of title on different blocks of land," he said.
"They are worried they might get charged for accessing an area of land illegally while fighting a fire.
"Now there are even penalties if a (protected) tree is pushed over, which in the situation where firebreaks are needed, can be way too risky."
Mr Fitchat said there were other challenges on the land with open and abandoned mine shafts, chemicals and asbestos and old fire tracks leading to nowhere.
He said if a volunteer ventured down the wrong track they were at risk of entering an old growth area where trees averaged 30-40 metres high and were often damaged by termites.
"Any slight change in wind or fire turns that tree into a potential weapon," Mr Fitchat said.
"I've spent a lot of time in the bush and it is beautiful, but when it burns it becomes extremely dangerous."
Just how dangerous the situation was became evident to Mr Fitchat in 2018, after a small fire broke out and staff were taken out away from their normal duties to fight it.
Realising a solution was needed, Mr Fitchat read the Bush Fires Act 1954 and realised that under Section 13, he could request that DFES take control of fire operations as they were occurring.
Section 13 outlines that if a bushfire is burning in a local government district, other than conservation land, the Fire and Emergency Services Commissioner can authorise DFES to take control of fire operations, either at request of the local government or because of the nature and extent of the incident.
Mr Fitchat said the Shire of Dundas now functioned fully on a Section 13, but in some instances the handover process took too long.
An example of this was the Balladonia bushfire last month, which started on February 7 and had been left to burn for two weeks.
After requesting a Section 13 on February 13, Mr Fitchat said council was told to continue monitoring the blaze.
He said another Section 13 was requested five days later and DFES took control on February 19, before triggers agreed between the two agencies were met.
The Eyre Highway was then closed from February 21-24.
DFES spent almost $500,000 managing the fire, with 94 emergency services personnel deployed to the incident over nine days.
Prior to taking control, DFES supported the Shire of Dundas in managing the incident by issuing public alerts on Emergency WA, monitoring the fire by satellite, liaising with local stakeholders and developing a traffic management plan.
However Mr Fitchat said the fire could have been stopped sooner, saying there were two solutions that could solve the problem and see bushfires better managed - either the WA Government taking over management of Crown land or the Shire of Dundas being provided with annual funding to get better resourced.
"If this was funded we could employ the right people with the right skills and get a work health and safety plan done," Mr Fitchat said.
"Over the past five years we have tried to get funding for a plan, but there is nothing available to meet this requirement, as we cover almost 94,000 square kilometres.
"Volunteer orientation and management is also really expensive and, at the moment, those costs would have to be covered by the community in local government rates."
Mr Fitchat said funding would also help to map out areas and purchase equipment to track what land volunteers could and couldn't access when fighting a fire.
While this was expected to come with a hefty price tag, he said it needed to be done before the Shire was able to take full responsibility for bushfires across such vast country.
"I don't think there is an induction on how to deal with a bushfire on different layers of land ownership," Mr Fitchat said.
"To fight fires with volunteers or council staff is a no go at the moment, I can't support it with the way legislation is.
"We are better off not reacting or engaging and instead requesting a Section 13."
"I don't think it is fair on our community that we have to fork out all that money to fight a fire on Crown land . . ."
Reflecting on the Balladonia bushfire, Shire of Dundas president Laurene Bonza said the situation was fraught.
Ms Bonza said the Bush Fires Act 1954 stated that if a fire starts on private land the property owner was bound to put it out, however there were few freehold properties lying within the council area.
As soon as a fire hits Crown land, she said it became a local government problem.
"We don't have any other tenure over Crown land," Ms Bonza said.
"We can't say we want to use this land for a tourist attraction or anything like that, we really don't have a leg to stand on.
"I think we are the only State in Australia where this is the case, with others it is the baby of the emergency services department."
Ms Bonza said the situation needed to be handled better and not reach a stage where the Eyre Highway was closed.
Despite having initial responsibility for a bushfire on Crown land, she said the Shire did not have the capacity to deal with it.
"If a fire breaks out we have to get contractors in to bulldoze the perimeter around it.
"If that happens and they are some distance away from town that's all at the cost of the local government, which is unbudgeted.
"I don't think it is fair on our community that we have to fork out all that money to fight a fire on Crown land in the middle of nowhere - it just doesn't make sense to me."
Ms Bonza was unsure why the Shire of Dundas had been lumbered with bushfires, saying the local government was not a hazard management agency for an emergency.
"I don't think we should step back from asking DFES in the first instance for that Section 13 and for them to take over because I don't really feel like it should be at our cost," she said.
Ms Bonza said a multiple agency approach was needed to fix the problem and improve the emergency response plan.
While some fires do burn themselves out, she said action needed to be taken sooner when a fire was heading towards the main freight route.
Ms Bonza said action was needed so a 10ha fire didn't turn into a 20,000ha fire.
"That was the same as the 2019-2020 bushfires, which started as a small fire just before Christmas and went on to burn through 532,000ha.
"Just as we were gearing up to do a debrief on that fire along came COVID and we never had one."
Mitigation work significantly reduces the risk of destructive wildfires
A mitigation burn was completed by DFES along a 53km stretch of Eyre Highway from Norseman to Madura Pass in late 2023 - ahead of the bushfire season.
DFES deputy commissioner operations Craig Waters said this work significantly reduced the risk of destructive wildfires and helped prevent fires running from pastoral country onto the highway, while protecting three communication sites and two vehicle rest areas for travellers.
"Extensive consultation was held with stakeholders ahead of the burn including the Shire of Dundas, Ngadju Rangers and Ngadju Native Title Corporation and the Mirning People Corporation," Mr Waters said.
"DFES managed and funded the burn including $9300 for equipment, supplies and fuel."
Mr Waters said the Shire of Dundas was developing a Bushfire Risk Management Plan and once this had been endorsed by the Office of Bushfire Risk Management it could apply for mitigation activity funding to treat bushfire risks in communities on State land they manage.
He said the Shire also received support from the ESL in the form of direct funding.
This was through the local government grant scheme and in-kind support, with DFES taking over bushfire response when requested by the Shire, including five bushfires since December 2023.
"Local governments from across WA also send volunteer firefighters, with DFES managing the costs associated with these deployments," Mr Waters said.
"The ESL pays for the delivery of critical and life-saving fire and emergency services across the State.
"It is allocated to ensure emergency resources are available to address risks across the State as efficiently and effectively as possible."
