Ahead of this year’s summer bushfire season, Meat & Livestock Australia (MLA) has created a new resource to help livestock producers prepare and recover.

The new manual is called Bushfire preparation and recovery: A manual for livestock producers – and it reinforces the fact bushfire preparation needs to occur more than once a year or just at the start of summer.

MLA Animal Wellbeing Program Manager Dr Michael Laurence said it was essential for producers to ensure they were ‘bushfire ready’ every summer.

“The best way to prepare for fire is to do a reasonable amount of work regularly, throughout the year, every year,” he said.

“This manual aims to help producers to achieve that by noting a step-by-step approach to planning for fire and handling an encroaching fire.”

The manual incorporates lessons from the Black Summer bushfires of 2019-20, which deeply affected producers and had a significant impact on the agricultural community, with thousands of farms affected by losses of livestock, land and property.

The manual includes a template to help producers create a farm fire plan for their property.

It also details practical, implementable steps producers can take for year-round fire preparation and planning.

The manual provides key information for what to do when a bushfire is approaching a property, including organising emergency feed and evacuating livestock to a safe refuge area.

Dr Laurence said that – compared with producers who are unprepared – those who have a farm fire plan and appropriate equipment and training lose fewer livestock or suffer less infrastructure damage and can get back to business sooner after a fire.

In addition to the bushfire manual, a bushfire hub has been created on the MLA website which includes the manual, videos and support services to help producers prepare and recover from a bushfire.

The bushfire manual was developed by MLA alongside Ausvet, The University of Sydney and The University of Melbourne.