Fire ants, and what would have to travel here
Fire ants are a category 1 restricted pest in Queensland, and fire ant biosecurity zones are in place in areas of Queensland to restrict the movement of materials that could spread them.
What a fire ant is
Bundaberg Regional Council's pest animals page opens its own fire ant section with the stakes: fire ants (Solenopsis invicta) are aggressive pests and a serious threat to Australia, and they can have devastating impacts on health, the environment, the economy and outdoor way of life.
Business Queensland's fire ant page describes them as native to South America, and as small, coppery brown insects that can inflict painful stings on humans and animals, with major impacts on our way of life.
The size is part of the problem for anyone trying to identify one: the department records a small ant 2 to 6 millimetres long, and notes that each nest contains ants of various sizes, with the head and body coppery brown and the abdomen darker. The council's own description matches it: within one nest, fire ants range in size from 2 to 6 mm, and they are copper-brown with darker abdomens.
The nest is easier to describe than the ant. Mounds can be up to 40 centimetres high, but they may also be flat and look like small patches of disturbed soil, and a mound has no obvious entry or exit holes. The council puts the same two shapes on its page: a nest shows as a mound, or as a flat patch of loose soil, with no obvious way in or out.
Where they are found is worth knowing as well: usually in open areas such as lawns, pastures, along roadsides and in unused cropland, and sometimes next to or under other objects, including timber, logs, rocks, pavers or bricks.
They build up quickly. After a mating flight, new queens establish colonies and lay 10 to 20 eggs within 24 hours, and those eggs hatch within 6 to 10 days. After 6 to 12 months a colony is producing male and female alates, the sexually mature ants, and newly mated females leave the nest to establish more colonies.
The work against them has a stated end point. The National Fire Ant Eradication Program aims to find fire ants in South East Queensland, contain them and eradicate them; its goal is an Australia free of them by 2032.
What a sting is like
The department's warning is that fire ants usually move quickly, which allows large numbers of them to move onto a person before they are detected. Its description of the sting is painful, burning and itching, and lasting up to an hour. Small pustules may form at the sting sites several hours afterwards and may become itchy, and broken pustules may become infected.
The council's page adds how the ants arrive at a person at all: they swarm in numbers and sting painfully when their nest is disturbed, and the stings can bring on severe allergic reactions, anaphylaxis among them, which can even be fatal, in people and animals. Business Queensland records the same rare outcome in its own words: the sting can, in rare cases, cause a severe acute allergic reaction, anaphylaxis.
Queensland Health's bites and stings page says: “If you have any concerns with level of consciousness or breathing call 000 immediately.” Its help line for a bite or a sting is 13 HEALTH, on 13 43 25 84.
The zones, and the law that holds them
Fire ants are a category 1 restricted pest under the Biosecurity Act 2014. Fire ant biosecurity zones are in place in areas of Queensland to restrict the movement of materials that could spread fire ants, as Business Queensland's fire ant page states.
The regulation establishes two of them: the part of the State identified as fire ant biosecurity zone 1 on the fire ant biosecurity zone map, and the part identified as fire ant biosecurity zone 2. Neither is drawn in the regulation itself; each is the part of the State the map identifies, so the department's page is the one to read on the day.
The blunt rule sits alongside them. A person must not move a live fire ant from a place in a fire ant biosecurity zone to another place, within or outside the zone, unless the person moves it under a biosecurity authorisation. The mirror of it is that a person must not keep a live fire ant under their possession or control outside the fire ant biosecurity zones, unless it is kept under a biosecurity authorisation.
The duty that catches people in business is a general one. Under the Biosecurity Act 2014, individuals and organisations whose activities involve the movement or storage of fire ant carriers have a general biosecurity obligation to take all reasonable steps to ensure they do not spread fire ants. The Biosecurity Regulation 2016 then prescribes procedures that must be followed when moving or storing a fire ant carrier.
What would bring them here
The department has already answered part of this question. It records that changes have been made to the Biosecurity Regulation 2016 to help stop the spread through human-assisted movement, which is another way of saying that the thing to watch is what people carry.
The council's own line on carriers is the practical one for a household or a business: some equipment and materials can take fire ants with them and spread an infestation, and they must be checked and managed carefully, above all when they come out of a fire ant biosecurity zone.
The stakes are set out on the department's pages: unless controlled, fire ants could spread to large areas of Australia, and could severely damage the local environment, outdoor life, and the agricultural and tourism industries. Nests have been found in an area spanning an estimated 600,000 hectares since the first Brisbane detection. Surveillance is ongoing, and treatment and suppression measures continue in the South East Queensland areas where the ants have been detected.
That work is the region's business too. The department calls fire ants dangerous, imported pests that could spread to large areas of Australia, with the environment, outdoor life and the agriculture and tourism industries named among what they could damage.
If you see one
The department's own view of what stops them is simple: early detection and reporting are the key elements in eradicating fire ants.
Bundaberg Regional Council's page carries the instruction in four words: please report sightings within 24 hours. Business Queensland asks that anyone who suspects a sighting report it to the National Fire Ant Eradication Program on 13 22 68, and stay vigilant. Its fire ant alert page gives the same number for a suspect ant or nest, or an online report. The page repeats it as a single instruction: call 13 22 68.
Outbreak.gov.au states the timing that matters: in Queensland, call 132 ANT (13 22 68) within 24 hours of a sighting, or report online at fireants.org.au.
The short of it
Zones restrict the movement of materials that could spread fire ants, which is why the materials a household or a business moves matter. A sighting in the Wide Bay is a call within 24 hours, not a job for a household to handle alone.
Where the ants stand, dated
- February 2001Fire ants are first detected in the Brisbane area. The department records that they have spread across South East Queensland since.
- By 2032The National Fire Ant Eradication Program's stated goal: eradicating fire ants from Australia.