This year’s El Niño is expected to be strong to very strong, tilting the odds toward a hotter, drier winter and spring across southern and eastern Australia. Droughts, water shortages and a dangerous fire season become more likely. It makes sense to prepare. But the size of the event isn’t set in stone. For authorities, farmers and land managers, this poses a challenge – wait, and risk being unprepared, or act with a chance preparations may go to waste. Prescribed burn windows, water allocation deadlines and decisions about crop sowing all need to happen before the forecast solidifies. Faced with decision problems like this, it’s best to stage interventions, starting with low-cost, low-regret actions and preparing contingency plans in case the worst happens. Why are authorities worried?Forecasters expect El Niño to keep strengthening into spring. But a strong event doesn’t always mean worse conditions here. The very strong 1997–98 El Niño resulted in near-average rainfall in most of Australia, while the far weaker 2002–03 event helped produce the severe Millennium Drought. The Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) climate driver can either intensify or weaken El Niño’s effect on Australia. It’s not yet clear which way it will go, though models suggest it may switch from neutral to positive into spring. If it does, the chances of dangerous levels of drying increase substantially. Over 2018 and 2019, these two climate drivers overlapped, causing intense drying ahead of the Black Summer bushfires. In 2023, they overlapped again, producing Australia’s driest three-month stretch on record. We should know if they will overlap this year by late July or August.From reacting to actingIt makes sense to lay out stages of action and do more as necessary, rather than waiting for certainty. State government drought responses are largely structured like this. But federal leaders have consistently relied on ad-hoc spending as droughts worsen rather than building resilience early, leading to worse outcomes for rural communities and a higher cost. Similar criticism has been made of our bushfire response. A recent independent review found only 7% of federal disaster funds went to reduce risk and boost preparedness before the disaster. So what would a staged approach look like? The huge fires of the 2019–20 Black Summer came after El Niño and the IOD coincided – and exposed flaws in disaster response. BeyondImage/Getty Stage 1: low regretsSome actions can be taken without regret because they cost little and build resilience. These would include: properly funding volunteer firefighter training and accreditation at state level. Volunteer firefighters do much of Australia’s firefighting but the sector is chronically underfundedcreate a national drought early warning systemlift the legal barriers that prevent Traditional Owners practising cultural burning at scale. Cultural burning could match existing fuel reduction with far less ecological cost. build the national register of firefighting personnel, equipment and aerial assets the Bushfire Royal Commission recommended back in 2020. It is still not in place. expand existing advice services for farmers, such as financial counselling and on-farm advice for sowing decisions and livestock feed planning. Stage 2: getting readyIf a positive IOD is confirmed, authorities should focus on actions too specific or too costly to justify now, but too important to improvise mid-crisis. These could include: boosting staffing and readiness for agencies responsible for drought and bushfire responsetying drought relief to observed conditions so support reaches farmers in weeks rather than monthsboost federal support for rural mental health early. At present, these measures require assessment after the disaster and sign-off from the prime ministerconfirm aerial firefighting capacity, cross-state emergency communications and potential defence force deployment in advance. This would avoid repeating Black Summer’s reactive scramble when more than 60 firefighting aircraft had to be sourced from overseas mid-crisis, incompatible radio systems left crews from different states unable to communicate directly, and defence force deployment only came after weeks of public pressureprovide hospitals with access to better air-quality forecasts ahead of fire season, to allow preparation for surges in respiratory illnessestablish and resource more community-led networks such as the Red Cross’s Community-led Resilience Teams. These networks have proven critical to effective disaster response and recovery but are often left out of formal emergency management planning.During and after disasterPreparation ahead of time means authorities aren’t building capacity under pressure but simply trigger what’s already in place. States use their incident control structures to coordinate police, fire, ambulance and the defence force under one chain of command. Declaring a state of emergency unlocks legal powers and funding pathways agreed well in advance. Evacuation orders go out through tested and proven public warning systems.The same logic carries into recovery. Rapid damage assessment teams establish what’s needed where, feeding into the first wave of financial support — one-off emergency payments and short-term income assistance for people who’ve lost homes, livelihoods or income. Recovery centres open as a single point of contact, so affected residents can access grants, counselling, insurance guidance and practical help in one place.Failing to plan is planning to failAn unprepared, improvised response doesn’t fail everyone equally – it punishes those with less capacity to compensate. A wealthy irrigator with secure water entitlements can weather a bad season better than a farmer reliant on the volatile temporary water market. Similarly, First Nations communities repeatedly report being left out of disaster planning and facing unwelcoming treatment during a disaster response.Australians are no strangers to natural disasters. What we have failed to do consistently is plan staged responses and begin as soon as a large event seems probable, rather than waiting for absolute certainty.Lucas Vargas Zeppetello receives funding from the National Science Foundation and the USDA. Em Murdock does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.