To say that a bushfire can turn a normally rational person into someone on the verge of becoming unhinged is an understatement.
Experts say that panic is a normal response and that you never know how you’ll react until a bushfire threatens your community, your property, your loved ones or your life. But the experts also say that being prepared can greatly reduce panic so here are some valuable tips and points of advice.
Preparing your property
Volunteer rural firefighter and Bushfire Ready facilitator, Murray Brooker, says you should be aiming to be ready before summer and in reality, making your property fire-ready is a year round job.
“People underestimate the impact of ember attacks which are more like an ember storm,” Murray says.
“Around 80 per cent of homes lost in NSW’s Black Summer fires were lost due to flying embers and not the fire front itself. Embers can travel up to 40km ahead of the fire front and fire speeds can reach 25km.”
Murray gives the following advice for preparing your property:
- Remove dead branches, foliage and fallen leaves.
- Cut back branches overhanging your house, sheds or carport. Make sure there’s a minimum two metre gap between house and branches.
- Don’t have a wood pile, mulch or flammable items close to your house.
- Clean cutters.
- Block gaps in roof spaces, under eaves and especially under timber decking where embers can invade.
- Keep grass and lawns to 10cm or less.
- Replace wood chips with gravel or pavers if close to perimeter walls.
- Lastly, but most importantly, you need a fire evacuation plan, have practised it and be ready to activate it.
When it comes to more thorough garden preparation, look at your plant selection and plant placement. We all love natives but many are highly combustible.
Firefighter and Bushfire Risk Mitigation officer, Melanie Haymont, says “having a firewise garden doesn’t mean no natives; it just means having them carefully positioned.”
“Well-placed vegetation and trees, with low flammability, can reduce the amount of radiant heat that reaches your house and help reduce the wind speed. They can also deflect and filter embers while also creating a defensible space.”
Here’s some of Melanie’s planting tips.
- Avoid having highly flammable plants (ones with high oil, wax and resin content) close to your house. These include rosemary, pines, eucalypts, peppermint trees and tea trees.
- Plants with high moisture content are preferable and include things like succulents, lilly pilly, citrus trees, saltbush, native frangipanis, magnolias and camellias. Kangaroo paws and some species of grevillea are also good options.
- Ground covers such as pig face can also form a low barrier closer to your home.
- Create areas of separation between clusters of plants using lawns, rocks and paving and don’t underplant under tall trees as this creates a fire-ladder.
Get ready to go
Both Melanie and Murray agree that you can never totally fireproof your property and that firefighters don’t want you to stay and defend; they instead want you to leave and leave early. They also stress the need to establish triggers for when you’ll activate your fire plan and when you’ll evacuate.
“On an extreme or catastrophic fire rating day or if fire has developed in your area; this is when your fire plan needs to kick in and kick in fast!” Murray says.
“Always have alternative escape routes to use depending on where the fire is coming from. And, if you only have one exit option, leave extra early as roads can quickly become blocked by traffic.”
Stay and defend?
This is only an option if you’re mentally and physically prepared. Firefighters will tell you that no one is fully prepared for the immense heat, smoke and sheer noise of a fire front, let alone the physical and psychological impact of defending. When ‘defenders’ from the Black Summer fires were asked if they’d stay and defend again the reply was a 100 per cent “NO!”.
Remember a house can be rebuilt; a human can not.
