Bushfire Prepardness
Prepare for Bushfire Season
A well prepared home is easier to defend and reduces the risk to surrounding properties. An unprepared home is not only at risk itself, but may also present an increased danger for your neighbours. Use the following lists as a guide to start preparing your home before the start of bushfire season.An unprepared property is not only at risk itself, but may also present an increased danger for neighbours. Here are some things you can do:
Structure
• Clear gutters and roof of leaves, twigs, bark and other debris. Consider
installing gutter guards.
• Enclose open areas under decks and floors.
• Install steel wire mesh screens on windows, doors, vents, and weep holes.
• Point LPG cylinder relief valves away from your house.
• Check and maintain firefighting pumps, generators, and water systems.
• Seal gaps in external roof and cladding.
• Remove flammable items away from your home (such as woodpiles,
mulch, boxes, hanging baskets, and outdoor furniture).
Vegetation
• Reduce vegetation along access paths.
• Mow your lawn regularly.
• Remove excess flammable materials such as long dry grass, dead leaves,
and branches.
• Trim low-lying branches around your home to a height of two metres from
the ground.
Access
• Display a prominent house or lot number at Property entry at road.
• Ensure adequate space for fire trucks to access your home (at least four
metres wide and high with turn-around area).
Personal
• Gather sufficient personal protective clothing and equipment for all persons
and store so that they are readily accessible.
• Relocate flammable items away from your home, including woodpiles,
paper, boxes, crates, hanging baskets and garden furniture.
• Prepare your evacuation kit and/or emergency kit.
• Stock your first aid kit.
• Check insurance policies are adequate for home and vehicles.
• Review and update your Bushfire Survival Plan as a family each year.
• Neighbourhood Safer Place, if available.
Contingency Plan
Bushfires are unpredictable and plans can fail. A contingency plan that identifies your alternate options may save your life if you are caught in a fire. You need to consider:
• What will you do if you are away from home (work, school, shopping)?
• What if your pet is scared and you cannot find them?
• What if you are home alone?
• What if you have guests staying with you?
• What will you do if your travel route is cut off?
• What will you do if you are trapped in your home?
• Where will you go if you had planned to stay but it is now unsafe and you
need to leave?
When is Bushfire Season?
• Fire season in Queensland often begins in July and runs through until
October, and can extend through to February. However, bushfires in
Queensland can occur at any time.
• These times can vary each year depending on the condition of local
bushland, long-term climate conditions, and short-term weather events.
• The impacts of climate change are creating extended fire seasons that
include higher temperatures with more frequent hot days, and increased
fire danger across the state.
Bushfire Hazards
What are your responsibilities as a land owner?
Managing Queensland’s bushfire risk is a shared responsibility. However, as
a land owner, you are legally responsible for managing bushfire hazards on your property. If a fire starts, you are legally responsible for taking all reasonable steps to report the fire and prevent the fire leaving your property.
What is a bushfire hazard?
A bushfire hazard is the potential fire behaviour characterised by weather, fuel loads and topography.
Fuel load is live or dead vegetation that accumulates in an area, over time. For example, dead leaves and twigs may build up as they fall from trees.
What do you need to do to meet your responsibilities as a land owner?
As a land owner, you must prepare and plan for bushfire hazards by being aware of fire management issues in your area, trimming trees, mowing grass, removing flammable material around your home and clearing vegetation, particularly if your land shares boundaries with bushland.
You must also strike a balance between undertaking these activities and preventing harm to the natural environment and areas of cultural heritage. You can do this through property planning or preparing and implementing a land and water management system.
What can you do to manage bushfire risk on your property?
The Queensland Government’s vegetation clearing laws allow landholders to undertake a range of activities to deal with the threat of a bushfire . In fact, there are a range of clearing activities that you can undertake without requiring a permit to light fire or notifying authorities. Find out more here.
What are QFES responsibilities?
If a QFES officer becomes aware of a potential bushfire hazard, such as an excessive fuel load, on a particular property, the officer is authorised under the Fire and Emergency Services Act 1990 to undertake a site inspection to discuss what may be necessary to reduce the risk of bushfire to your property, including:
• improving firebreaks or conducting a hazard reduction burn
• removing or disposing of any vegetation or flammable material
• obtaining and maintaining equipment for fire fighting purposes
• ensuring there is an adequate water supply on your property for fire
fighting purposes, and / or
• ensuring there is a safe escape from the property.
QFES Officers are authorised to formally direct you to comply with measures considered necessary to protect the community, or to take necessary measures on your behalf, at your cost.
What if you don’t comply?
If an agreement cannot be reached, QFES may elect to undertake enforcement/compliance action. The initial fine for not complying with such a direction is currently 50 penalty units for individuals. However, if an agreement cannot be reached, more serious penalties may apply under the Fire and Emergency Services Act 1990, including imprisonment, depending on the seriousness of the offence.
What are your responsibilities under the Environmental Protection Act 1994?
Under the Environmental Protection Act 1994, emergency incidents, such as those involving the release of hazardous materials from fires, vehicle accidents, and spillage of explosive, flammable or toxic chemicals, often involve public safety matters and require an immediate response from emergency services. These types of incidents may also threaten or cause serious or material environmental harm.
What are your responsibilities under local government legislation?
Overgrown vegetation and storage of materials in and around a property are regulated under local government legislation. Before clearing your land, you should check what local vegetation protection laws apply in your area.
Click here for further information .
*Download Information Sheet