What is a bushfire?

• A fire in the country that often features strong winds, heavy smoke and showers of embers before and after it passes. Its radiant heat is the greatest threat to life and property.
  
• Bushfires become disasters if they cause loss of life or injury to people or animals or damage to property.

Causes of bushfires

• Accidents, such as carelessness by people undertaking risky activities on very hot days, or faults in electrical equipment which cause overheating.
  
• Failure to control a burn-off of vegetation allowing a fire to escape into other vegetation.
  
• Arson -- when people deliberately light fires to cause damage and threaten lives.

Types of bushfire

A bushfire may occur in grassland, native vegetation (bush) or in plantation forests

Likely impact of bushfires

• Bushfires can kill. Radiant heat, dehydration and asphyxiation (lack of oxygen) are the major factors.
  
• Well-prepared houses resist the normally-brief exposure to bushfire flames, protecting those inside who may then be able to save their homes.

Factors which affect the risk to life and property include:

• Property location and safety of access.
  
• The amount and type of nearby vegetation.
  
• Building position and condition.
  
• Availability of water and the physical capabilities of people involved.

Warnings

In the warmer months of the year fire bans or restrictions are determined for various South Australian regions by the Country Fire Service (CFS). Telephone the CFS Firebans Information Hotline (1300 362 361) to enquire whether there are any current warnings or to find out what you can or can't do.

Bushfire Information and Bushfire Warning System are issued by the CFS for major bushfires, an explanation of these warnings is available by clicking this link to the CFS Website.

The Bureau of Meteorology issue national weather warnings on their website, click on this link to view any current weather warnings. Bureau of Meteorology

Emergency action: bushfire

Before Summer

Prepare your family Bushfire Action Plan (available as a CFS Fact Sheet from the CFS Web site- www.cfs.org.au )

• Agree on a household plan to leave early or stay to protect your home during a bushfire. If leaving, plan when, where, how you will go and what to take.
  
• Check that you have adequate insurance cover for bushfire and ensure that the policy is stored in a safe place.
  
• Organise protective clothing for all members of the family and have it ready to use (see CFS Fact Sheets for details)
  
• Decide how to protect your pets if a fire occurs. (see CFS Fact Sheets for details)
  
• Clear flammable material from around your home (use mower, spade or rake). Trim branches well clear of the house. Keep roof gutters clear of leaves and twigs.
  
• Store wood, fuel and paints well clear of the house.
  
• Remove rubbish, leaf litter and shrubs close to house. Keep grass short but green.
  
• Decide what you will do with tractors, cars and other machinery if a fire arrives.
  
• Fit wire mesh insect screens to doors, windows, vents. Enclose gaps, roof eaves and the area under the house.
  
• Keep a ladder handy for roof access (inside and outside) and hoses to reach all parts of house and garden. If water is not mains connected, organise an independent water supply and obtain a high pressure pump. (see CFS Fact Sheets for details)
  
• A heavy, pure wool blanket (to wrap around you) and a flask of water (to drink and to moisten a corner of the blanket as a smoke mask) are basic requirements for bushfire survival and will give protection against radiant heat, dehydration and asphyxiation even in intense fires.

If a bushfire approaches

Preparation

Prepare your house well. Unless you decide to leave early, stay with the house after taking these extra precautions:

• Put your Family Bushfire Action Plan in place.
  
• Phone the CFS-- do not assume they know about the fire.
  
• Fill baths, sinks and buckets with reserve water.
  
• Turn off gas and power.
  
• Start your petrol-powered sprinkler system.and check that it is working correctly.
  
• Remove curtains and move furniture away from windows.
  
• Wear long woollen or heavy cotton clothes and solid boots or shoes, a hat or woollen balaclava and gloves.
  
• Plug downpipes with rags and fill all roof gutters with water. Hose down walls and garden on the sides of the house facing the 'fire-front' and watch for spot-fires.
  
• Move your car to a safe area and in a forward facing direction and make sure there are woolen blankets inside for protection against radiant heat if needed.
  
• Place a metal ladder against the roof and place another ladder inside near the ceiling access.
  
• Bring pets inside.

During a fire

• Inside, close all windows, doors and block crevices and gaps.
  
• When the fire-front arrives, stay inside, away from windows, while it passes (usually 5 to 15 minutes).
  
• Drink water every ten minutes.
  
• Quickly extinguish any fires which may have started in, on, or under the house and check inside the roof cavity for fires as well.
  
• Retreat inside the house if it beciomes too hot to remain outside.
  
• If you are in a house or car you will be safer than in the open while the fire-front passes. Stay there, unless advised to leave by emergency authorities.
  
• If the house is alight and can't be extinguished, move away to safe burnt ground. Don't leave the area, wait for help. Listen to a battery radio for official information.

After

• Unless all of the vegetation surrounding the home has been destroyed, if the day is windy the fire may return.
  
• Spot fires can reappear up to eight hours after a fire has passed, especially if trees and tree roots have caught alight during the peak of the fire.
  
• If it's safe to do so, stay where you are and monitor the fire.
  
• Contact CFS to give controllers a summary of what has occurred. This will assist them to form a clear picture of the fire's path.
  
• Check your family and your pets.
  
• Check your food and water supply.
  
• If sufficient water remains and you assess that a fire risk still exists, continue to run your sprinkler system.
  
• Assess the damage to your property and prepare to lodge an insurance claim.
  
• Be alert for strangers. Theft occurs during or after some disasters.

Driving in a bushfire

• Try to avoid driving in or near bushfires.
  
• If caught in a bushfire while driving, stay in the vehicle
  
• Don't drive through flames or smoke.
  
• Stop at a clearing or by the roadside in a low vegetation area. Switch off ignition, and turn on hazard lights and headlights.
  
• Stay inside unless near safe shelter. Keep vents, windows and doors closed. Lie down below window-level, under a woollen blanket until the fire-front passes.
  
• In a bushfire a car petrol tank is unlikely to explode in the period needed for you to shelter.
  
• Stay inside the vehicle using it as a shield against deadly radiant heat of the fire-front.
  
• After the main fire-front passes, if the vehicle is on fire or heat and fumes inside are severe, get out and move to already burnt ground, keeping your whole body covered with a woollen blanket.

If caught in a bushfire on foot

• Don't panic -- cover all exposed skin and hair. Move across-slope, away from the fire-front, then down-slope towards the rear of the main fire-front. Find open, or already burnt ground.
  
• Don't try to out-run the fire or run uphill or go through even low flames unless you can clearly-see a safe area close by.
  
• If you can't avoid the fire, protect yourself from heat radiation by lying face down under an embankment, rock, loose earth, or in a hollow, or if possible get into a pond, dam or stream -- but not into a water tank. In an intense fire, water can become very hot and even boil.

Bushfire facts

• In the most extreme conditions, forest fire travels at a forward rate of spread of about 10-12 kph.
  
• Crown fires (fires in the canopy of the trees) are only sustained where the slope is greater than 20 degrees or the fuel under the trees is sufficiently high to sustain such a fire.
  
• The danger in having trees close to houses may be a myth. Well spaced trees with cleared ground beneath can act as spark arresters, and may also absorb some of the radiant heat.
  
• Houses often burn down in a bushfire because they are unattended and the small fires inside the house, caused by cinder penetration, or sparks in gutters, wood piles and rubbish nearby are not extinguished. If the owner is present, and is properly prepared , the house may be saved. While a well-prepared house may not survive, it will be able to provide occupants from the impact of radiant heat.

Effects of fuel moisture on the rate of fire spread

• When fuel moisture content is halved the rate of spread more than doubles.
  
• Small decreases in fuel moisture content result in a disproportionately greater rate of spread. For example, if fuel moisture drops from 12 per cent to six per cent the rate of spread is five to six times greater.
  
• On Ash Wednesday in Victoria (1983) the fuel moisture content was estimated at two to 2.5 per cent.

Effect of wind and slope

• The higher the wind velocity the greater the rate of spread.
  
• If a fire is burning up a hill, for every 10 per cent increase in slope the fire will double its forward rate of spread.
  
• A fire that is moving downhill is able to be controlled, but the same fire moving up a slope can become very intense with high flames which can easily prove difficult or impossible to control.