The ability to shelter safely depends on

·        Thorough preparation of house and grounds, protective clothing and knowledge.

·        A shelter location that gives protection from radiant heat, smoke and toxic fumes.

·        Ability to check safely from inside your shelter what stage the fire has reached

·        Exiting from an inside shelter only after the peak of flames has passed

·        Ability to easily exit to safe area outside. This is vital.  If in a building, staying by an exit door.
·        An outside shelter site  being well away from flammable vegetation and buildings.

·        Wearing protective clothing.

·        Having a pure wool blanket to shelter beneath.

·        Having water to drink.

Historically, most deaths occur while evacuating through embers or flames.

 A close second highest happen while outside and not protectively clothed.

Shelterers and defenders who have died have usually not known how to do so safely.

Suitable shelter places

All should be vegetation-free.  You should wear protective clothing.

Be covered with a pure wool blanket. Have water to drink

·        Inside a building by exit door

·        Behind a non-flammable structure

·        In large solid building in a town

·        In masonry toilet blocks

·        Behind the trunk of  a large European deciduous tree

·        .In a dam or river with vegetation-free banks.

·        Close under a cliff above which a fire is approaching.

·        Sports ground, picnic ground, golf course, school ground.

·        Rocky ground.

·        In a quarry, fallow paddock or dirt rut