After his return to Australia from London in 1956, Fred Williams turned his attention to painting the Australian landscape, depicting it in such a distinctive and fresh way that, for many, his art transformed their vision of it. The Cape York bushfire works were painted when Williams travelled to Queensland in late 1977. On earlier trips to the area, he expanded his colour palette to include rich purples and greens to capture the Queensland rainforest and tropical vegetation; however, in this image of a bushfire at Cape York, ochres dominate the composition.