#05245

It used to be common for cane farmers to burn the cane before harvesting. This got rid of any snakes and other dangerous animals, but also the diseases present in the cane.

If you just drive around looking for the fires it's pretty much too late to take a photo by the time you see the smoke in the distance, so I organised with a farmer to ring me before he started.

The heat was unbelievable, from 50 yards away I had to hold the camera in front of my face as a shield, even when not actually taking a shot.

With mechanical harvesting it's not common to burn the cane, so these shots are even harder to get these days.


McClean, NSW

Technical: Canon F1, 100mm
Keywords: sugar cane farmers burn harvesting snakes dangerous if fires smoke farmer heat 50 mcclean nsw grafton fire odyssey flame