Floods recede along the Fitzroy River in the Kimberley but fire now a concern

It will be impossible to put a number on the amount of stock lost at Kalyeeda Station, in the Kimberley, until muster later in the year, but manager Camille Camp predicts it could be high.

The cattle she has seen floating past in the rapid floodwaters have not been her own, but rather cattle from the neighbouring property - hundreds of kilometres away.

"The waters are so strong that everything's just been washed away," Ms Camp said.

"Our cattle are going to end up on someone else's property - they're not going to be dead on our station."

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A week ago, looking out her homestead window, Ms Camp saw masses of brown, murky water decorated with the tops of stark trees - as the Fitzroy River, usually 15 kilometres away, came within 20 metres of her homestead.

With the water receding this week, Ms Camp's main concern has switched to the potential fire risk from wet hay bales.

The hay is stored in a shed with a range of expensive machinery, which Ms Camp is unable to move as the shed is still flooded.

"Our biggest concern at the moment is the hay catching fire, because it's wet - they get so hot that they just explode," Ms Camp said.

"If the hay catches alight, everything is going to go up."

Currently at Kalyeeda Station there is only Ms Camp, her husband Lach and baby Jack.

This has made it difficult for them to assess damage and clean up, as Mr Camp can't do it on his own and Ms Camp has to look after little Jack.

As with a lot of pastoral stations, they are desperately looking for helpers to repair fencing and various clean-up jobs.

Pastoralists at stations along the Fitzroy River are assessing damage this week having had homesteads and sheds flooded, after the river peaked at 15.81m on Thursday morning in an unprecedented weather event for the region.

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There are associated damage costs with the flood, not just houses, Kimberley Pilbara Cattlemen's Association business development officer Lauren Bell said.

"It's not just the houses, but the plant and equipment that you typically have in the workshops and stuff around the houses," Ms Bell said.

"Then they've also suffered stock losses, the number of that is still to be determined."

Ms Camp has reported fencing, bores and solar panels floating down the river.

Being at the beginning of the wet season, which typically doesn't finish until April, there is the potential for many more rainfall events in the coming months.

With the bridge at the Fitzroy River cut off and damaged, there is concern too about how those remaining on pastoral stations will be able to replenish their own food supplies.

Blina Station manager Jamie Morrison has lived in the Fitzroy Crossing area for the past 30 years, and says he has never seen anything like ex-tropical cyclone Ellie.

"We've never had a live system set on us for this long, dropping this much, this one just sort of sat on top of us for five days," he said.

"We're all good, but I think there are others that have water through their homestead and are in a bit of trouble - we just hope they're all OK."

At other stations along the river, there have been reports of cattle, especially newborn calves, struggling from hypothermia, according to Bunuba Dawangarri Aboriginal Corporation spokeswoman Andrea Myers.

"The weak, and the young calves, are getting hypothermia because it's been continually raining for five, six days," Ms Myers said.

"They're just cold, and then the wind hits them - they're struggling to have places to get dry and to warm up."

There are concerns that the tragedy from the Queensland floods may repeat itself in Western Australia, where the death toll of cattle continued long after the initial flooding event.

"We do have concerns, learning from what happened in Queensland, where a lot of adult cattle drowned in the initial flooding event, but then a lot that survived subsequently died due to exhaustion and exposure," Ms Bell said.

"We are concerned that once this immediate emergency situation is over, we will need to be assessing feed availability and making sure that hay and hard feed is available to help them push through."

Ms Bell said it was important to remember this was people's livelihoods and this was an extremely upsetting time for pastoralists.

"It's been really distressing for a lot of people because that's their livelihood and cattle - stuff that they've taken a lot of care of," Ms Bell said.