Knowing the location and direction of a bushfire – and where it’s likely to impact – is vital to the decisions that you will make next. A few elementary map reading skills will help you make safe decisions about where and when to go.
Stage Five – Evaluate your home
Topics covered include:
- Tasks you can do to make your house easier to defend from fire
- Being properly insured – boring but important
- Responsibilities for renters and landlords.
Firefighters spot them all the time: houses that are so unprepared they are undefendable against a bush fire.
The tough reality is that in a major fire there aren’t enough fire trucks to cover every street, never mind every single house. The fire crew on your street will have to assess the houses in terms of whether they’re possible to defend.
What makes a defendable house? A combination of design, maintenance and some good old common sense. Basics include
- Keeping gutters and decks clear of leaf litter
- Sealing up gaps where embers can sneak in
- maintaining a tidy buffer zone around the house.
- Add in some good clear access for firefighters and a reliable water source, and you’ve got a property that stands a far better chance if fire comes knocking
The following tasks are all about giving your house the best chance possible of making it through a fire. Some of them are quick, others might involve a bit of a project. You don’t have to do everything, but tick off even a few of these and you’ll have a safer nest!
Stage 5 tasks coming up!
Challenge Task 12: Ignition Mission
Knowing the location and direction of a bushfire – and where it’s likely to impact – is vital to the decisions that you will make next. A few elementary map reading skills will help you make safe decisions about where and when to go.
What to do if you’ve got a rental
Knowing the location and direction of a bushfire – and where it’s likely to impact – is vital to the decisions that you will make next. A few elementary map reading skills will help you make safe decisions about where and when to go.
Insurance is not a dirty word
Knowing the location and direction of a bushfire – and where it’s likely to impact – is vital to the decisions that you will make next. A few elementary map reading skills will help you make safe decisions about where and when to go.