Everyone needs to work together this bushfire season

ENSURING South Australians are bushfire prepared is a shared responsibility and the SA Country Fire Service wants to work in tandem with the community to ensure this bushfire season is a safe one.

CFS Director, Community Risk and Resilience, Alison May is urging everyone to keep their homes and properties well prepared all year round and to take extra care with those preparations now as summer approaches.

“We need to have that awareness that a fire can start at any time,” Ms May said. 

“The difference in summer is often how much it takes hold and how rapidly it spreads. 

“We urge the public to share the responsibility with us (CFS) and minimise the risk of a bushfire around their property.

“We all need to be vigilant.”

Top of the list is creating a five minute bushfire plan and ensuring everyone in the family is on the same page.

“We recommend you plan to leave early on days that are forecast as catastrophic or are of high fire danger,” Ms May said. 

“And make sure even the younger members of your family have a job to do. “We know from research that it helps them after an event to know they had some control over keeping everyone safe.”

You should also ensure you pack important items that you’ll need to survive a bushfire as well as items precious to you, including medication, mobile phone and charger, external hard drive and any other critical documents and personal treasures.

Your bushfire plan should outline what actions each member of your family/household will take on fire risk days and if a bushfire threatens .

Having phone numbers and details of key contacts is also an important part of bushfire planning, as is including pets and livestock in the plan.

People die in fires trying to save their animals so you need to decide in advance what you’ll do with your pets and livestock.

“Everything might not go exactly to plan but having that framework is a huge help,” Ms May said. 

Planning to stay and defend is a big decision and most homes in high-risk bushfire areas are not defendable on catastrophic days.

The advice is to only stay and defend on days of high fire danger if you are well prepared and your home is properly constructed and prepared to the highest level, with leaving early always the preferred option.

“On a catastrophic day, the best plan is not to be on the road,” Ms May said. 

“Your safest option is to visit family, friends, or head to a Bushfire Safer Place.”

She is also urging everyone to ensure their property is well prepared.

Cleaning gutters, mowing lawns, pruning trees, removing debris and ensuring there is a defendable space around your home and other critical structures, and removing potential ignition points, including dog beds and wood piles, should all be priorities as summer approaches.

“It is so important that there is less material for embers to catch on,” Ms May said. 

“The majority of houses lost in a bushfire are through ember attacks.”

Crevices where embers can collect are potential ignition points, while cracks under doors, on window ledges, windows, or along verandahs are particularly vulnerable. 

Vents into the house structure are also common entry points for sparks and should be covered in fine wire mesh to prevent embers from getting into walls, roof cavity areas or through windows.

Ensuring all your machinery is well maintained and in good working order is also another critical step in bushfire preparedness, as well as testing grass cutters, water pumps, sprinkler systems and fire extinguishers.

The advice to homeowners is also to make sure your hoses can reach all the way around your house. 

If you have a swimming pool, water tank or dam, displaying a Static Water Supply (SWS) sign at your property entrance is also a big help to CFS crews.

It is still too early to accurately predict how the weather will pan out this bushfire season but the CFS is regularly updated by the Bureau of Meteorology with more targeted predictions soon to come.

“We have had a lot of rain and there is a bit more rain around this spring but it doesn’t take too many days of high temperatures to start drying out the vegetation,” Ms May said. 

Di Gould