Qld pastoral property sells for $35.5 million

Blue ribbon Central Queensland property Cungelella at Springsure sold at auction for $35.5 million on Wednesday.

Buyer of the 21,785ha (53,830ac) property was North Australian Pastoral Co (NAPCO), operating through a phone bid to Ray White Rural auctioneer Andrew Adcock.

Losing bidder was the Dutch company GP International, while the third bidder was John Quintana of Walco Investments.

A huge crowd attended the auction in the Country Comfort Motel in Rockhampton.

The property was offered by the Nobbs family which has extensive pastoral property interests in Central Queensland.

SOURCE: Queensland Country Life

Victorian bushfires set to get worse

Farmers and firefighters are bracing themselves for 40-degree temperatures and strong winds tomorrow as losses from Victoria's bushfires mount.

Already three people have died in the fires across the State and estimates on the number of sheep lost in the Willaura-Moyston region, near the Grampians, have hit 90,000 head.

Country Fire Authority deputy chief officer Graham Fountain says the fire danger tomorrow will be extreme.

He says the Grampians fire has already burnt 105,000 hectares.

"That's 10 times the size of Phillip Island," Mr Fountain said.

With further fire danger in the next few days, CFA staff are closely monitoring the situation around the State.

"We've got 30,000 operational firefighters across the State. At the moment we've deployed 10,000 of them," he said.

Firefighters were this morning working to secure containment lines in various parts of the Grampians and to the east of the range.

Victorian Farmers Federation president Simon Ramsay visited the fires in western Victoria on the weekend and said some farms had been "nearly totalled".

"I was a little bit staggered by the Willaura-Halls Gap fires in the totality, particularly the way the private farmland was burnt, and the numbers of livestock," he said.

Mr Ramsay says it is believed 80,000-90,000 sheep and 500-600 cattle have died in that district alone.

"One farmer lost 10,000 sheep; it's not hard to run the figures up when you've got a few properties that have lost 3000 or 4000 each," he said.

Smaller stock losses have also been reported in other parts of the State.