By Rural Assistance Commissioner, Peter Tuohey
With the outlook for an increased fire risk across parts of Victoria, farmers should be planning now for the upcoming season – and there is lots of information available to assist them.
Seasonal conditions to date have supported average to above average crop and pasture growth increasing vegetation on farmland across large areas of the state.
As we know, bushfire risk depends on many factors including weather and climate, fuel amount and availability, vegetation types, recent fire, and disturbance history.
With this in mind, farmers and rural landholders should be working now to manage the risk of bushfire on their properties.
It’s important to review your fire preparedness plan on an annual basis and again during periods of high fire risk.
Preparing your property ahead of the fire season, and having a good farm fire plan, can minimise impacts and enable a faster recovery.
Agriculture Victoria’s Fire Preparedness Toolkit provides a practical guide to reviewing your preparedness planning.
The toolkit contains checklists and templates to help you prepare.
It can help you map critical assets, water sources, assembly/evacuation points and stock refuge areas, as well as potential stock disposal sites in the event of fire.
Ensuring your Property Identification Codes (PICs) are up to date, is another thing you can do to help.
A recent farm fire preparedness webinar discussed the practical steps to take to protect your livestock, property, and farm business ahead of the fire season and heard insights from farmers who had been affected by the January fires. If you missed it view it online.
The toolkit is available on the Bushfires webpage and can be used in conjunction with resources from the Country Fire Authority (CFA) and your local council.
