HOW CAN YOU PROTECT YOUR FAMILY AND HOME?

Hobart is one of the most bushfire-prone cities in Australia. To lower the risk, the City of Hobart reduces flammable materials in our forests through prescribed burns, protects Hobart with fuel breaks, maintains its fire trail network and has a well-trained team of firefighters. The City does everything it can to reduce the bushfire threat to people, houses, business and the natural environment, but needs everyone in the Hobart community to also take steps to keep life and property safe from the threat of fire.

PREPARE FOR BUSHFIRE

If you live in or near bushland, it’s important to have a plan to protect yourself and your family from bushfire. When a bushfire approaches, preservation of life must become the priority. It might not always be possible to save your home and all of your belongings. With a plan in place, you can ensure that you and your family survive the fire. This plan should, above all else, give a high priority to leaving early if a bushfire is close by or likely to affect you.

PREPARE YOUR HOUSE AND PROPERTY

When preparing your property for bushfire consider all of the materials outside and around your home that could burn. On a hot summer’s day when moisture levels are low many different types of materials will burn. Any embers floating through the air can ignite a fire where they land. The amount and dryness of any potential fuel, such as wood stacks or old tyres, can further increase the chances of a fire igniting. Many Hobart houses are clad in timber and the walls, doors and window frames of houses are very often built with timber. Verandahs, decks and pergolas are also often made of timber. Any flammable material on or near these items can act as kindling, and should be removed. Flaky paint on walls and window sills can also hold embers and old, dry paint can help ignite a fire. Mulch containing chipped bark, shredded plants and trees can also be a fire danger and should not be used close to buildings or any other flammable structures, such as wood piles. Many plants with fine leaves or natural oils in their leaves can be easily ignited by a fire starting in mulch and will burn fiercely. Managing vegetation and other flammable material around your house is very important. If you intend to defend your home from a bushfire, at the very least you should consider creating a ‘defendable space’ around your house. For most urban houses this will be most or possibly all of your outside yard. For rural dwellings it should be a distance of at least 30 metres or even greater where possible. As a minimum you should consider the following: • Grass should be short cropped and maintained, especially during declared fire danger periods. • All leaves and vegetation debris should be removed and checked regularly. • Flammable objects should not be within 10 metres of vulnerable parts of a building. • Plants taller than 10 centimetres should not be grown within 3 metres of a window or glass feature of the building, including in pots. • Shrubs should not be placed under the canopy of trees. • Individual and clumps of shrubs should not exceed 5m2 and must be separated by at least 5 metres. • Trees must not overhang or touch any parts of any building. • There must be a clearance of at least 2 metres between the lowest tree branches and ground level. • Block holes (eg under the house) where embers might land and ignite. • Clean out gutters and look for and remove bird nests in eaves. • Install gutter guards. • Mats made from recycled cloth or coir (coconut fibre) should be removed from decks and

UNDERSTANDING THE FIRE DANGER RATING SYSTEM

The Fire Danger Rating warns of the potential impact of a bushfire on any given day, based on forecast weather conditions. Each summer the Fire Danger Rating is widely publicised. Categories Severe, Extreme and Catastrophic indicate a fire will be unpredictable, uncontrollable and fast-moving. If a fire breaks out in these conditions, the safest option is to relocate to a safe place away from any fires. Ratings above 50 occur in Tasmania around three times a year. Ratings above 75 have occurred only half a dozen times in Tasmania during the past 90 years. However, with the impact of climate change, the potential for such days is increasing. It is worth noting that the Fire Danger Rating on Black Saturday in Victoria on 7 February 2009 approached 200.

Source: fire.tas.gov.au HIGH VERY HIGH

LOW-MODERATE SEVERE EXTREME

CATASTROPHIC

FIRE DANGER RATING (FDR)

CATASTROPHIC FDR 100+

EXTREME FDR 75-99

SEVERE FDR 50-74

VERY HIGH FDR 25-49 RECOMMENDED ACTION

Leaving early is the safest option for your survival – regardless of any plan to stay and defend. Leaving early is the safest option for your survival. Only well-prepared, well constructed and actively defended houses are likely to offer safety during a fire. Leaving early is the safest option for your survival. Only stay if your home is well prepared and you can actively defend it. Only stay if your home is well prepared and you can actively defend it.

Know where to get more information and monitor the situation for any changes.

Know where to get more information and monitor the situation for any changes.

HIGH FDR 12-24

LOW-MODERATE FDR 0-11

verandahs as well as from directly in front of wooden doors during periods when the fire danger rating is Severe or above. Even if you plan to leave your property well before a bushfire approaches – which is the safest thing to do – it is still important to reduce the impacts of fire on your house and belongings. If you have created a defendable space on your property firefighters may use it to defend and save your house from a bushfire. The Tasmania Fire Service’s online portal Prepare Act Survive is an excellent source of further information. There is also a brief house and property preparation checklist at the end of this document.

FIRE DANGER RATING

Take the time to check the fire danger rating forecast at fire.tas.gov.au. It will help you understand the potential impact of a bushfire on any given day and to see whether to leave early, well before a bushfire arrives, or to stay and defend your well-prepared property on days when the fire danger rating is less than Severe. During the fire season, it is important that at least one person in each household monitors the fire danger rating for your area each day. Please take the time to read thoroughly the Tasmania Fire Service’s Fire Danger Rating Forecast web page.

Summer bushfire smoke shrouds the City of Hobart’s bushland depot. Photo: John Fisher

WHEN BUSHFIRE STRIKES

When bushfire strikes a community it can affect people in many ways. Having to remain at a heightened level of bushfire readiness for days or weeks on end can take a heavy toll on a person’s mental health. Nearby bushfires and smoke from major fires can be incredibly unsettling. Smoke can travel a long way and be disorienting. Smoke affects some people more than others and for people with medical conditions can be life threatening. Bushfires can interrupt electricity, phone, internet and water connections. These interruptions might be minor, but they can also remain for prolonged periods of time. Roads can get blocked by falling trees or even closed due to safety concerns. It might be difficult to get to shops to replenish household supplies. It is important to be prepared well before every bushfire season. Preparing your household, your home and your property for bushfire can help reduce the impact of fire on you and your household, your pets and livestock, your house and your property.

WHEN WILL YOU LEAVE?

If you live in a bushfire prone area, there are very few houses designed, let alone built, to adequately survive a Severe or Catastrophic fire. Your best preparation is to be prepared to leave early. Make sure you have a household bushfire response plan and that it includes triggers that will activate your response, especially when public warnings are being issued about increased fire danger periods or even nearby bushfires. If a fire is threatening your neighbourhood, keep track of updates through ABC local radio, official websites and social media channels. Reliable sources of information include the TasAlert website, the Tasmania Fire Service, Tasmania Police and the City of Hobart. Make sure your household’s bushfire response plan is very clear about when you should leave your home and which roads you will need to take. Leave before your evacuation route is compromised. Leaving early is always the safest option. The Tasmania Fire Service advises against defending your home once the Forest Fire Danger Index exceeds 50 – the equivalent to a fire danger rating of Severe, Extreme and Catastrophic. Very few houses are defendable on your own. If you live near bushland and a bushfire starts in or near Hobart on days when the fire danger rating is Severe, Extreme or Catastrophic, you should leave for a safe place well before the fire threatens your home. Residents in particularly high risk areas, such as the edges and foothills of kunanyi/Mount Wellington, are advised to leave their homes during times of Severe, Extreme or Catastrophic fire danger – even if there is no bushfire at the time. If you leave your home, do not return until emergency services have confirmed it is safe to do so.

There are a number of things you can and do need to do to prepare yourself for any bushfire season: 1. Have a household bushfire plan. 2. Prepare your house. 3. Prepare your property. 4. Prepare to leave.

PREPARE A HOUSEHOLD BUSHFIRE RESPONSE PLAN

Having a good bushfire response plan for you and your family or household can be the difference between life and death in the event of any major emergency – storms, floods, bushfires. Being prepared before the bushfire season means you know what to do well in advance of any bushfire threat. Everybody’s plan will be different, so while it can be useful to look at information on websites or other people’s plans, it is very important that your plan meets your needs and circumstances. It is also critical that everybody, especially the adults in your family or household, are very familiar with the plan. Also make sure you review your plan before each bushfire season in case something needs changing. A range of information and important checklists are available on the Tasmania Fire Service website to help plan and prepare for bushfires. Please take the time to read thoroughly the Tasmania Fire Service’s Prepare Act Survive online portal.

WHERE WILL YOU GO?

A very important part of your plan is to know where you will go if you have to leave your home before or during a bushfire. Can you stay safely with family or friends away from bushfire-prone areas? What about your pets? In any bushfire event, the safest option is to leave early for a pre-determined location, as specified in your household bushfire response plan. It’s best to have a standing arrangement with family or friends, with whom you can be in contact throughout the bushfire season. Plan your exit route carefully and make sure you have other options available in case roads on your preferred route are closed. In the event of a major emergency, such as a bushfire, the City of Hobart may open evacuation centres to provide accommodation for people who have nowhere else to go. An evacuation centre should not be treated as your preferred option and should not be relied on in your bushfire response plan. The location of evacuation centres will not be known until the emergency event has begun and will be communicated through the City of Hobart website, on social media and the local ABC radio station. The location of any evacuation centre will be determined by factors such as the scale of the emergency and the availability of access routes. Evacuation centres are created primarily to protect life and will have only basic accommodation. They may be uncomfortable and crowded but will

provide safe shelter in a life-threatening event. A Tasmania Fire Service identified “Nearby Safer Place” should also be treated as a place of last resort if a bushfire approaches too quickly to implement your preferred plan or to reach an evacuation centre. A Nearby Safer Place could be a sportsground or other open space and should be used only when the threat is imminent and you are forced to find shelter. Your preferred option should be to stay with family or friends away from the bushfire area.

PETS

Planning what to do with our pets during a bushfire, especially larger pets such as horses, is also important. People have put themselves in danger during bushfires because they had not planned and acted with sufficient time to make sure their pets and other animals were in a safe place ahead of any danger. It is vitally important you know where your animals need to go in the event of a bushfire and how they will get there. Give yourself enough time to make your pets safe and to ensure that protecting your pets does not compromise your own safety and that of your family.

COMMUNITY BUSHFIRE PROTECTION PLANS

Community bushfire protection plans provide members of the community with specific information on their options when bushfire threatens, and help with the development of household bushfire response plans. For the Hobart area, the following plans are available on the Tasmania Fire Service website: • Glenorchy – Lenah Valley Community Bushfire

Protection Plan. • Fern Tree Community Bushfire Protection Plan. • Mount Nelson – Tolmans Hill Community

Bushfire Protection Plan. • South Hobart Community Bushfire Protection

Plan. • Lower Sandy Bay (including Taroona)

Community Bushfire Protection Plan.

These plans cover: • Safety options for surviving a bushfire, including the location of nearby safer places. • Guidance on how to receive emergency warnings and bushfire updates. • Access in and out of the community area. • Advice on what to do to prepare for and survive a bushfire. • How and where to source additional bushfire safety information. For more detailed information look up Bushfire Protection Plans on the Tasmania Fire Service website.

COMMUNITY PHONE TREES AND BUSHFIRE READY NEIGHBOURHOODS

Consider joining or even setting up a local ‘phone tree’ and making your street part of the Bushfire Ready Neighbourhood program. Phone trees are a great way to stay in contact with neighbours before, during and after any bushfire threat, and to ensure that the more vulnerable people in your local community are safe. Being part of the Bushfire Ready Neighbourhood program will help you create bushfire plans for your property and even your street. It will also teach you how to make timely, informed decisions on what you, your family and your community will do in response to a fire threat and prompt you to monitor the Tasmania Fire Service website and local ABC radio station for alerts on nearby bushfire locations, speed, weather and direction. The Tasmania Fire Service can help you create a local phone tree or you can go ahead and create one yourself. Phone trees need a coordinator to collect at least two contact numbers for each person part of your Bushfire Ready Neighbourhood, including a contact number with an answering machine, voicemail or text message. Once the local phone tree has been created it can be shared with every member in your Bushfire Ready Neighbourhood. For more information look up Bushfire Ready Neighbourhoods on the Tasmania Fire Service website.

BE PREPARED

The more you know about the risks of bushfire the better prepared you will be if bushfire ever threatens you, your family or your home. It will also help you cope during a fire emergency: • Learn more about fire behaviour. • Memorise and understand fire danger ratings and what they mean. • Become more informed about what to expect under dangerous bushfire conditions. • Find out from others how bushfires have behaved in your area in the past. • Think about what you might feel, what you are willing to deal with and what you would expose your family to in times of bushfire. How have you reacted to other frightening events in the past? Many people who have stayed to defend their home during a bushfire, especially husbands and fathers who thought they were prepared, have regretted that decision once confronted with the reality of a bushfire bearing down on their house. Too often the response is:

“What have I done? We shouldn’t be here!” • Complete all of your fire preparedness actions early. • Make and practise your household bushfire response plan to help you respond automatically during a bushfire threat. Above all, leaving early is always a better option.

Protecting home and hearth a family affair

Robyn Thomas knows she has to be off the mountain with her family well before a serious bushfire threatens her home. It’s a message that has been drilled into her through neighbourhood bushfire meetings, and, just in case she forgets, Robyn keeps little reminders around the garden of what happened last time a fire came knocking in Fern Tree. One is a set of marbles, fused together when the now infamous 1967 bushfire came roaring in from the northwest. The house that used to stand on this site was razed to the ground. Another reminder is a Singer sewing machine. Jet black, its parts were soldered together in the fire and are now frozen in time, unmoving and unworkable. ‘I can get quite anxious when I know hot weather is coming,’ says Robyn. ‘But then I look out the window towards the mountain and the Organ Pipes and realise just how lucky I am to live in such an incredibly beautiful place.’ It’s a feeling likely to have touched anyone living in Hobart’s outer suburbs, places that back on to forested land like Tolmans Hill, Mt Stuart, Lenah Valley and the back of Sandy Bay. As a city surrounded by forest the threat of bushfire is one everyone in Hobart lives with, whether they know it or not. Robyn moved to Fern Tree from West Hobart about ten years ago with her husband Julian, and two boys, Tom and Bill. ‘Over the years we have done as much as we can to create a buffer zone between our house and the edge of nearby forest, and we have a bushfire plan that we practice,’ says Robyn. ‘Last year we took down a large gum tree that had branches hanging within a few metres of the house. It was a beautiful big tree, and it was hard to watch it go, but it was just too much of a fire hazard that close to the house.’ Every year the entire family rakes up dry leaves and dead timber from around the house and takes them to the tip. They have also put in a huge vegetable patch that acts as a natural firebreak between the house and the forest edge. Regular watering results in a plentiful supply of vegetables, and keeps the soil moist. They removed large grevilleas, climbers and honeysuckles, which, though lovely, hid a tinderbox of old, dead leaves and branches. The garden is now home to less flammable plants like native flax lilies and irises. Plants growing close to the house are kept neatly pruned, including the banksias, and a cottage garden provides a delightful contrast to the tall forest that surrounds the property. Robyn and her husband, who is a volunteer in the local fire brigade, have checked the house for gaps where fire embers could get in and sealed them off. They also have two enormous water tanks and a fire pump. ‘Plan A is to not be at home if there is a severe or higher bushfire danger rating,’ says Robyn. ‘In case we are caught unawares and it becomes too dangerous to leave, our plan B is to make the house as defendable as possible.’ Robyn warns that one area of preparing for a bushfire often overlooked is just how much house insurance people will need

The Singer sewing machine, charred and blackened in the 1967 fires.

Robyn at home with her sons Tom, left, and Bill. Photos: John Sampson

The marbles Robyn found in her garden, fused together in the 1967 Hobart fires.

to cover the costs of repairing or even rebuilding their home after a bushfire, especially given much tougher new bushfire housing standards. All families in Robyn’s street participate in the Tasmania Fire Service’s Bushfire-Ready Neighbourhoods program, which helps local communities plan and prepare for bushfire. Advice from the local volunteer fire brigade has been of enormous help, guiding Robyn and her neighbours in how to prepare for bushfire. The street activates a ‘telephone tree’ for high fire danger days that helps everyone keep tabs on each other. If a bushfire strikes with limited notice it is important to know who is at home and who might be away on holidays. ‘Our entire street has been part of bushfire ready neighbourhoods for a long time now,’ says Robyn. ‘We all get together to talk about what to do if a bushfire comes, how we will all react and what plans we have in place. Working together as a community helps us feel safer and more prepared for bushfire conditions.’ Bushfire Ready Neighbourhoods is now a statewide program that helps Tasmanian communities plan and prepare for bushfire. It recognises that communities, individuals and the Tasmania Fire Service all have a role to play in keeping people safe from bushfire. For help preparing your own neighbourhood plan visit bushfirereadyneighbourhoods. tas.gov.au.