Fire ants have been discovered on the Sunshine Coast for the first time in at least four years.
Experts from the National Fire Ant Eradication Program are responding to sightings at Nirimba.
A member of the public reported two nests on Monday, with initial surveillance and treatment conducted on Wednesday.
The ants were last night confirmed as fire ants, which can have devastating impacts on the environment, economy, human and animal health.
The NFAEP has established an emergency response to assess the extent of the infestation and develop a treatment plan.
Eradication activities, including intensive treatment and surveillance, will occur up to 5km out from the detection site to protect the area and ensure no undetected fire ants remain.
This is the second fire ant detection on the Sunshine Coast. Fire ants were found in Beerwah in 2017 and declared eradicated in 2020.
Related story: Fire ants on our doorstep: threats posed to Coast
NFAEP executive program director Ashley Bacon said this week’s sightings were alarming, but efforts were well underway to counter the insects.
“All detections of fire ants found outside our containment boundary are concerning, but we know what we are doing,” he said.
“We are the world leader in fire ant eradication and have procedures in place to manage outlier detections, and we are already following these.
“The detection is located 27km north of the nearest known detection in Caboolture, which was found last month.
“We need everyone to play their part in the fight against fire ants by looking for and reporting suspect ants to us online at fireants.org.au or by calling 13 25 23.
“We also need people to let our teams in if we need to conduct eradication activities on their properties and take steps not to spread the invasive pest.”
The Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority approves the use of fire ant treatment and deems it safe for people, animals and the environment.
The treatment contains the same active ingredients commonly found in household and agricultural pest control products, but at a much lower concentration.
Compliance and tracing investigations are also underway to help determine how the ants arrived in the area.
Fire ants are copper brown in colour and have a darker abdomen. They measure 2mm to 6mm in length with a variety of sizes found in each nest. Their nests appear as mounds or patches of loose soil and have no clear obvious entry or exit holes.
Fire ants are attracted to disturbed soil and other organic materials, and they can be transported through human-assisted movement of such products.
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