Essential Bushfire Safety Tips

Book excerpt: By the author of the acclaimed The Complete Bushfire Safety Book, this third edition of Joan Webster OAM’s Essential Bushfire Safety Tips deals with people's fears and concerns about wildfires in general, and the maze of official safety policies. Its concise and straightforward style clears a path of understanding through the tangle of conflicting opinions and misconceptions. It identifies the shortcomings and likely adverse repercussions of some of these policies, defines the actions necessary for people to stay safe during a bushfire – and their homes to remain intact – and sets out safe procedures. Essential Bushfire Safety Tips reveals the scientific post-wildfire research into why people who stayed with their homes died during the 2009 Black Saturday fires, and shows that, despite the almost universal media reports that 'nothing could be done to save homes on such a day', many householders did, in fact, save their homes. Included are chapters on township protection; shelters, refuges and bunkers; as well as information on choices of home bushfire safety strategies; protective house design, furnishings and gardens; protection of animals; and first aid. This book fills the gap between bushfire authority brochures and long, in-depth books. Backed by scientific facts, it brings a message of hope and empowerment: that with appropriate knowledge, preparation and awareness, towns, homes and people can survive wildfires. Set out in easy-to-access dot-point one-liners, it demystifies bushfire behaviour, explains how to prevent a bushfire from destroying houses, details wildfire safety at each stage of threat, describes weather factors and safe burning-off, details the benefits and hazards of staying, non-defensive sheltering, and evacuating, and how to make the decision on which course is best for you.