Preparing Your Home And Family For Bushfire Season

Preparing Your Home And Family For Bushfire Season

Summer is definitely here. For most of us it means beach trips and BBQ's with friends. It also brings much hotter weather and the chance of bushfires.

Preparation for bushfire season should be a year-round task, but if you haven't started yet, here are some tips to help as a guide and remember it's never too late to make preparations to protect your home and family.

Trees and plants provide fuel for fires. Remove the build up of dead branches, bark or shrubs

If you're planting a garden, plant trees away from the house so limbs and branches don't hang over your roof and drop leaves in gutters. These can ignite quickly if burning embers fall on them.

Clean leaves from your roof, gutters and downpipes

Remove all flammable material that is within 20 metres of your property. This includes flammable liquids and newspapers or cardboard that you have stockpiled for recycling.

'No-one wants to be impacted by a bushfire. Often there is nothing that can be done to stop damage, but if you follow the above small tips you will have at least given your place every chance of surviving if a bushfire is in your area.

'All Australians should be removing any dead and dry material around their property. People should also trim low lying branches two metres from the ground", said Lachlan Adams, Co-Founder, MyGenerator.com.au.

There are also a number of items that can help in a bushfire situation:

During a bushfire, power and water may be cut off and this often happens in advance. A small power generator will allow your family access to small appliances and allow laptops and phones to continue to be charged.

Portable battery radios allow people to listen to news updates

Good quality torches and long life batteries are imperative

Packed bag with fresh clothes which can be easily carried

A quality high-pressure fire fighting pump to help with any small spot fires and to water your garden/foliage on your property in preparation

'If you do live in a bushfire zone please organise a bushfire plan with your family and make sure everyone knows what it is, where they need to go if they get separated and what items they can grab quickly if they are forced to evacuate", concluded Adams.

If families take the time to make the necessary preparations they will have a better chance to keep their home and family safe this bushfire season.