abc.net.au/news/suspicious-fires-cane-crops-northern-rivers-nsw-police/102804240Investigations are continuing into a number of fires in cane crops west of Yamba in northern New South Wales.NSW Police are treating three fires as suspiciousEmergency services were called to three properties at Harwood just before midnight last Friday after fires were reported in sugarcane fields.
But NSW Police have confirmed that investigators are treating the three fires reported as suspicious.Police said the fires had been extinguished by local residents before the NSW Rural Fire Service, and Fire and Rescue NSW, arrived at the scene. While police only received reports of three fires, the Sunshine Sugar company said there were fires on at least half a dozen cane farms in the Harwood and Chatsworth areas.Sunshine Sugar's Vivien Miller said that given the dry conditions, the uncontrolled fires lit near homes and livestock could have had deadly ramifications.
"There would have been quite a bit of dew so some of the one-year-old cane has not taken off, but all of the two-year-old cane paddocks that we know of did actually start to burn, and burn out of control," she said.