WA bushfires affect local economy

Milk producer Harvey Fresh says the deadly bushfires in Western Australia's South West region that wiped out 128 houses have resulted in several days of lost production and will affect milk supplies.

The large domestic and export business, based in Harvey, was forced to dump thousands of litres of milk after the site lost power as a result of the blaze that burnt more than 71,100 hectares.

Harvey Fresh general manager Paul Lorimer said the company was working through a recovery phase and was hoping to return to production as soon as possible.

"Today was a clean-up day, we got everything in order and we're certainly focusing on getting out to farms and collecting fresh milk and distribute as much as possible," he told AAP on Monday.

"Our biggest challenge from a logistical point of view is that the two main highways north have been affected, so our ability to get products north has been significantly affected."

Mr Lorimer confirmed three Harvey Fresh employees had lost their houses in the bushfire, which also killed two people, and said the company would do all it could to support them.

WA Farmers Federation president Dale Park said several agricultural industries were affected, with potato crops, fruit orchards and beef cattle damaged or destroyed in bushfires.

Mr Park said the association was raising money for victims of the fire through crowd-funding site GoFundMe, which currently stands at $16,000.

"The whole recovery process is going to be pretty tough stuff," he said.

The federation president said he did not believe the disruption to Harvey Fresh's operations would affect milk prices in WA.

"We're going to see a bit of a drop-off in milk production but they should be able to rebound."