The Daly family had all but written this year off when it came to producing good quality milk.

But they did it anyway.

And for the Jingellic dairy farmers, being recognised in the Dairy Australia Milk Quality Awards, was a "welcome surprise" after the year they have had.

"It has been a year to remember, or not," Meaghan Daly told The Border Mail.

"We were chasing fire for two and a half, three weeks in the summer.

"We were lucky enough to get the quality awards two years in a row and we thought we had blew it this year.

"We were told to evacuate and go to Albury during the fires so the cows missed two milkings.

"They suffered a little bit and our cell count went through the roof and we were stressed about the cows and they were stressed because there was fire and smoke everywhere.

"It was really stressful and the cows were dripping milk - it was horrible."

Mrs Daly and her husband Noel were named in the tip five per cent for milk quality across the country.

"It is a bit of a surprise," Mrs Daly said.

"We lost about 200 acres on our beef side, you couldn't see anything but suck in all the smoke.

"We had a really good fire plan and are very lucky not to be completely burnt out but we were scorched.

"We had time to move cattle so luckily didn't lose any livestock.

"But we didn't have power for weeks."

Mrs Daly said the summer bushfires had an impact on everyone in the Jingellic community.

"It is terrible on everyone, I was saying to someone the other day that your mind never rests, you body may rest but your mind never does," she said.

"You are always thinking about what is going to happen what was going to come next.

"We had to evacuate by midnight on the Friday and the fire went through on the Saturday, my husband and two boys came back the Saturday night to get on whatever water source we had.

"We spent quite a few days putting out hot spots that kept flaring up."

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While Mrs Daly said it was a blessing to be able to get back to the dairy 24 hours after being evacuated, the impact on missing a couple of milkings took months to rectify.

"Our cell count went out of control for a couple of days," she said.

"And then we started getting it down into good figures again, but not excellent figures.

"So we went on with that for a good month or more and we thought we had blown our milk quality but no we got it under control.

"To be in the top five per cent again is a nice surprise given the bloody horrible start to the year we had."

Across the Murray Dairy region there were 19 dairy farmers who achieved gold quality milk and 26 others, including the Dalys, named in the top five per cent at this years awards.

The awards recognise farmers producing the countrys best milk based on bulk milk cell count.

Gold awards are given to the top 100 dairy farmers nationally for milk quality and, together with the silver award winners, represent the top five per cent.

"From all of us at Murray Dairy we congratulate all of this years winners," Murray Dairy chief executive Jenny Wilson said.

Across the Murray Dairy region there were 19 dairy farmers who achieved gold quality milk and 26 others, including the Dalys, named in the top five per cent at this years awards.

The awards recognise farmers producing the countrys best milk based on bulk milk cell count.

Gold awards are given to the top 100 dairy farmers nationally for milk quality and, together with the silver award winners, represent the top five per cent.

"From all of us at Murray Dairy we congratulate all of this years winners," Murray Dairy chief executive Jenny Wilson said.