A number of Australian dairy regions sit in the most fire-prone areas in the world. To help prepare for bushfires, dairy farmers can use Dairy Australia's Dairy Farm Fire Plan. This plan can help to best protect family, staff, livestock, dairy and machinery from all types of fire threat.
In the Preparing your dairy farm for fire threat toolkit produced by Dairy Australia and the Country Fire Authority, Gippsland dairy farmers share the lessons they learned during the 2009 bushfires.
By using this toolkit and/or the Dairy Farm Fire Plan, dairy farmers can create their own fire preparation plan.
The toolkit helps farmers to develop a fire preparation plan using the following three steps:
- Preparation: fuel breaks, power options and livestock, feed and machinery management
- Response: putting preparation into action
- Recovery: getting back to normal as soon as possible
This video below explains the planning tips step by step.