Furniture can encourage house destruction

FUEL REDUCTION IS NOT JUST FOR THE BUSH AND GARDEN.

YOUR FURNISHINGS ARE FUEL, TOO.

Inside your house needs its own hazard reduction.

The reason houses are reduced to a few centimetres of ash during a bushfire is NOT that the ‘sweeping flames’ of the bushfire have ignited the cladding  and moved inwards to consume all. The reason is that some of the contents of the houses have been ignited inside by the bushfire’s wind-blown embers and this internal fire consumed all.

What happens when an unattended spark or ember from bushfire is blown inside a house, is that it smoulders, flares, and fire spreads through furniture and furnishings, clothes and kitchen contents, papers and plastics and fly-sprays and cleaning fluids. If no-one douses those first embers, the fire moves through the house and structure until only ash and twisted metal remain.

Destruction of historic homestead Wolta-Wolta, South Australia

Be aware of which aspect of your house makes it most vulnerable to destruction:

Not the cladding, the contents!

DANGEROUS FURNISHING FABRICS:

Cotton, rayon, linen, and acrylic; the plastic coating of fibreglass fabrics; nylon, terylene, dacron and other synthetics; polyurethane foam padding; synthetic carpets.

PROTECTIVE FURNISHING FABRICS:

Pure, untreated, heavy quality wool; natural leather; good quality vinyl; good quality lino; tiles and slate floors. 

To find more on this topic see:

Essential Bushfire Safety Tips 

www.publish.csiro.au/pid/6969.htm or 

The Complete Bushfire Safety Book www.randomhouse.com.au/books/joan-webster/the-complete-bushfire-safety-book-9781740510349.aspx 

Most libraries have both.

Stay and Defend or Leave Early'.

LINK to my talk at the Daylesford Bushfire Forum: 
"Is 'Stay & Defend or Leave Early' still relevant?" 
'Stay and Defend or Leave Early'. Is this slogan still relevant?
Is any slogan relevant? Few inform. Few are factual. Few save
lives or homes. They are seldom science-based. Often
nonsensical.

 So many slogans over the years. We’ve had:
‘People save houses. Houses save people.’
‘People and houses are safer together.’ ‘Stay in your house’
‘Stay and Defend or Leave Early’
‘Prepare, Stay and Defend or Leave Early’
‘Prepare, Act, Survive’.
And now: ‘Leave and Live’

Here are just a few of the non-factual, non-sensical new

mini-mantras spawned by the ‘Leave and Live’ slogan.

Far from raising consciousness, they increase ignorance and compound confusion. 

They contradict science, obscure facts, and immortalize errors. 

MORE:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/0t9hjrhf0ev3l67/Daylesford%20talk.pdf?dl=0

Time to prepare for summer bushfire safety.

The time to prepare for summer bushfire safety is Now.

Even if you plan to evacuate, your house is more likely to be there when you return if you prepare for its safety.

During a bushfire, vacated homes have the highest chance of being destroyed and each burning house sends embers to destroy others. Most in-town house losses are caused by such house-to-house ignitions - not by the bushfire itself. Good preparation, and knowledge of what to do, can virtually assure survival.

Of the few Black Saturday fatalities classified as having made some preparations (14%), the majority did so, bushfire scientists investigating the losses noted: ‘only in the hours, or minutes, before they thought a fire would hit.’

This house survived the Black Saturday bushfires at Kinglake

Contrary to the official fire service message, they found that people had not died because they stayed to defend. That only 5% of fatalities in or near houses had been engaged in any kind of active defence and very few had a comprehensive fire plan. That more than 2/3 of houses in the Black Saturday fire zones survived and 80% of home defenders succeeded.

The post-Black Saturday research confirmed that almost every loss is caused not by ‘catastrophic’ weather, lack of official warning, nor by ‘staying’ or ‘going’. But by apathy, ignorance, and confused understanding. What did some know that others did not?

Safely prepared surrounds

Winter is the time to:
• Modify the grounds.
• Make and mend.
• Check your bushfire safety plan and personal Survival Kit

Inspect the garden for clutter and flammability. In an un-cluttered garden, flames have to thin out; radiant heat has to die down, embers become sparse. The less dense the vegetation, the less intense any fire in it. Remove undergrowth and mow grass beneath trees - a tree can only ignite if such ‘kindling’ is beneath it. Replace highly flammable native plants and ‘fine fuel’ with fire retardant plants such as succulents and European deciduous trees. Move plants away from walls and windows. Flames can’t ignite cladding if it’s not being hugged by shrubs.

House are rarely destroyed by bushfire’s flames. Ignitions are caused by ember entry. They burn from the inside outwards, furniture and fittings first, frame and cladding last. Roof/ceiling space, windows and sub-floor are the main entry points.

Walk round your property and take note of spots where embers could penetrate.
• Clean out the roof void! If you don’t have an inspection trapdoor, make one. Insulate above and below rafters.
• Secure loose iron and fill nail holes. Install low flow roof sprinklers if affordable.
• Plug cracks with a fire resistant expandable epoxy-type filler 

• Insulated wall cavities so burning debris can’t send flames up them. Or build on a concrete slab.
• Shutter or screen windows and skylights so neither radiant heat nor embers can crack them.
• Furnishings with fire resistant materials. Embers can’t ignite floors if they’re slate, tile, brick or quality lino.
• Pack a Survival Kit containing pure wool blanket.
• Prepare, plan and practice a thorough safety plan based on proven information.

ABC’s Catalyst program tonight, Earth on Fire, was excellent. A pity its promo and introduction was so misleadingly sensational: ‘The nature of fire is changing’. 

No.

The nature of fire is not changing.

It is the nature of its required ingredients that are changing. As the program itself showed: human activity and climate change. And a lot of this is up to us.

The unchanging requirements of fire remain:

Fuel - density of vegetation to give it intensity of heat

Heat - ignition source: lightning, human activity

Dryness - dryness of air (low relative humidity) to hasten ignition and burning

Oxygen - strength of wind to speed and extend reach of flame & spread of embers

We can’t change the heat, dryness, oxygen factors. But WE CAN THE FUEL FACTOR.: within and around our properties; within and around our towns.

Time to prepare for bushfire safety

The time to prepare for summer bushfire safety is in the winter. Now.

Even if you plan to evacuate, your house is more likely to be there when you return if you prepare for its safety.

During a bushfire, vacated homes have the highest chance of being destroyed and each burning house sends embers to destroy others. Most in-town house losses are caused by such house-to-house ignitions - not by the bushfire itself. Good preparation, and knowledge of what to do, can virtually assure survival.

Of the few Black Saturday fatalities classified as having made some preparations (14%), the majority did so, bushfire scientists investigating the losses noted: ‘only in the hours, or minutes, before they thought a fire would hit.’

Contrary to the official fire service message, they found that people had not died because they stayed to defend. That only 5% of fatalities in or near houses had been engaged in any kind of active defence and very few had a comprehensive fire plan. That more than 2/3 of houses in the Black Saturday fire zones survived and 80% of home defenders succeeded.

The post-Black Saturday research confirmed that almost every loss is caused not by ‘catastrophic’ weather, lack of official warning, nor by ‘staying’ or ‘going’. But by apathy, ignorance, and confused understanding. What did some know that others did not?

Winter is the time to:

·        Modify the grounds.

·        Make and mend.

·        Check your bushfire safety plan and personal Survival Kit

Inspect the garden for clutter and flammability. In an un-cluttered garden, flames have to thin out; radiant heat has to die down, embers become sparse. The less dense the vegetation, the less intense any fire in it. Remove undergrowth and mow grass beneath trees - a tree can only ignite if such ‘kindling’ is beneath it. Replace highly flammable native plants and ‘fine fuel’ with fire retardant plants such as succulents and European deciduous trees. Move plants away from walls and windows. Flames can’t ignite cladding if it’s not being hugged by shrubs.

House are rarely destroyed by bushfire’s flames. Ignitions are caused by ember entry. They burn from the inside outwards, furniture and fittings first, frame and cladding last. Roof/ceiling space, windows and sub-floor are the main entry points.

Walk round your property and take note of spots where embers could penetrate.

·        Clean out the roof void! If you don’t have an inspection trapdoor, make one. Insulate above and below rafters.

·        Secure loose iron and fill nail holes. Install low flow roof sprinklers if affordable.

·        Plug cracks with a fire resistant expandable epoxy-type filler

·        Insulated wall cavities so burning debris can’t send flames up them. Or build on a concrete slab.

·        Shutter or screen windows and skylights so neither radiant heat nor embers can crack them.

·        Furnishings with fire resistant materials. Embers can’t ignite floors if they’re slate, tile, brick or quality lino.

·        Pack a Survival Kit containing pure wool blanket.

·        Prepare, plan and practice a thorough safety plan based on proven information. 

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Core bushfire safety factors

THERE ARE 3 CORE VULNERABLE ASPECTS OF A HOUSE
Roof/Ceiling space (Clear, insulate, plug gaps)
Windows (cover with shutters or metal mesh)
Subfloor (cover with metal mesh)

THERE ARE 3 CORE PROTECTIVE ASPECTS OF HOUSE SAFETY
Vegetation management (reduce flammable plants, move from walls & windows)
Ember-proofing of buildings
Water and a reliable means to deploy it

THERE ARE THREE CORE DANGERS TO YOUR SAFETY
Radiant heat
Dehydration
Smoke inhalation

THERE ARE THREE CORE ASPECTS TO YOUR SAFETY
Protective clothing and a strong pure wool blanket
Drinking water
Nose mask

THERE ARE THREE CORE ASPECTS OF SAFE EVACUATION
Leaving well before a bushfire threatens your area
Going to somewhere that is truly safer than your home
Being able to reach it safely by an open road & in a short time

THERE ARE 3 CORE ASPECTS OF SAFELY DEFENDING YOUR HOME
Protective clothing
Water: to douse embers fallen near the house, not fight outer flames
emergency shelter behind solid substance

THERE ARE 3 CORE ASPECTS OF SAFE SHELTER
Staying by a door that exits to outside with drinking water
Exiting in protective clothing or wrapped in a pure wool blanket
Exiting to a sheltered or already burnt or area.

Understand that

FLAMES KILL PEOPLE – EMBERS DESTROY HOUSES

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What is 'protective clothing' for the householder?

I have been asked what is meant by ‘protective clothing’ 

for bushfire home defenders, evacuees and shelters. 

It is clothing able to shield your skin from embers and radiant heat

First, it is not necessary to wear wool. In wool, your body can overheat and cause heat stroke. The main needs are: strong cotton drill coverall; strong cotton broad-brimmed hat that can be tied on; strong shoes with thick soles; a nose cover to filter smoke; and a flask of drinking water. These can be your personal survival kit.

Suitable coveralls can be found at disposal stores e.g. ex-army overalls. Whatever you use, it needs a high neckline, no waistband, long sleeves, firm cuffs, long straight-legged trousers neither skin-tight nor flared. Shirts or pullovers need to be tucked into trousers, and socks pulled up and tucked up over trouser legs so these are not loose and open. If gumboots are worn, tie trouser legs over them, so embers can’t drop in. Do not wear thongs or plastic shoes, flowing clothes, loose or cowl necks, or nylon or polyester - even for underwear. For a nose cover, a non-synthetic scarf or tea-towel can be effective, especially if dampened.

Absolutely basic is a strong, tightly woven pure wool blanket

(it must be pure wool – no synthetic in it)

large enough to cover you completely when crouched or lying down. 

If possible, wet the part covering your nose to filter smoke. It is not necessary to wet the whole blanket. The only use of this is that it would cool you until it dries out. It is a myth that you can be scalded by the steam from a wet blanket.

Keep these items in a satchel or bag and keep it in an easily accessible place, 

e.g. hall, laundry, or verandah cupboard. 

               Take it with you whenever you travel into bushfire territory.

The Personal Survival Kit is an aspect of bushfire safety I devised in 1964. I had been dashing from my home to stop a fire in our outer suburban bushland from reaching neighbours’ houses. (It had been lit by children playing with matches). As I ran across to it, I realised I was totally inappropriately dressed, so as soon I I returned I gathered up these things, put them in a bag in the shed beside the rake - and thought ‘I’ll never be caught again. My Survival Kit idea was one of many first published in The Complete Australian Bushfire Book (1986), which fire authorities have used ever since.

Protective travelling in the bushfire season.

If a grass fire approaches you while travelling in a car, 
you can be safe by staying in it. 

The radiant heat given out by grass fire flames, however, can be intense. 

Many travellers who have died when confronted by grass fires 

would most likely have survived. had they stayed in their cars.

Car refuge safety depends on fire intensity, flame height, amount of vegetation, whether parked on clear ground or grass, the distance of the car from flames and if the duration of flames themselves is less than 10 seconds. Grass fire flames last 5–15 seconds and the front passes quickly. 

Always carry a pure wool blanket for each passenger 

when travelling in rural areas in the summer

Picture from Grassfires, fuel, weather and fire behaviour (CSIRO Publishing, 1997) by N. P. Cheney and Andrew Sullivan

Cars can be death traps in most forest fires as these flames can last five minutes.

As with houses, cars burn down from the inside. 

When people die in cars they are killed by the fuel inside the car: fibreglass, hydraulic fluids, petrol, plastics, insulation, magnesium alloys, and toxins given off by them.  Duco burns in 15 seconds on a car 4.5 metres from only 40 ^o, 3-metre high flames. Upholstery and trims can burn within one minute.

Only faulty petrol tanks have been known to explode. 

The tank won’t explode in the short sheltering time of grass or mild forest fire.

Both The Complete Bushfire Safety Book and Essential Bushfire Safety Tips 

have chapters on protective travelling during the bushfire season.

Town saved by residents

An inspiring story, from Michael Leaney, proprietor Star Hotel, Walhalla, Gippsland

"Walhalla has faced 5 bushfires in close proximity in 8 years. On Black Saturday the fire burnt to within metres of the town, yet the town survived unscathed. While we have a very small population [less than 20 people] we have a population which is highly aware and prepared for the prospect of fire.

"On Black Saturday, we took heed of the numerous warnings in the build up. The business in town closed for the day, the hotel asked their guests to depart and campers and holiday makers were advised to depart. This was in the early hours of the day and this was off our own bat, no one told us to do this. As a township, we prepared hoses and equipment throughout the village and basically sat back and waited for something to happen…with a focused and mentally prepared group of townsfolk remaining…anyone who wouldn't cope was asked to leave. This team of defenders then went about our task of waiting for something to happen…at about 6:30pm we swung into action.

"Walhalla didn't loose a house and was protected by a small group of well prepared, focused people."

Home defenders and water needs

A garden sprayer - particularly to have available atop your ladder at the roof-ceiling inspection hole for firing water at sparks and embers in that awkward space, where it would be impossible to wield a mop – and/or knapsack are also very useful during home defence.

So is a long handled household mop.

The idea of householders using a wetted mop to douse embers instead of throwing a heavy bucket-full, was first proposed by Dr Robert Leicester of CSIRO’s Division of Building Research in Highett, Melbourne, and passed on to me by personal communication when that department was assisting my with my research for The Complete Australian Bushfire Book (1986), in which it was first suggested to the public:

“Bushfires have been beaten away from buildings with no better equipment than green branches and wet bags.  Dr R. H. Leicester of the CSIRO Safety and Risk Program has estimated that an active person, armed with a smoke mask, mop and 1,000 litres of water (about four 44 gallon drums or seven baths’ full) should have little difficulty in coping with the spot ignitions caused by burning embers.  But the more you can afford in modern fire suppression facilities, the more chance of your home or business surviving an intense wildfire.  All bushfire research authorities agree that most people who have been prepared for bushfire and made sure they have a dependable water supply and who understand what to do with it stand a good chance of saving their homes and surviving.

 "Many people who lost their homes on Ash Wednesday 1983, despite otherwise good precautions, had no reserve water supply.

“Many people who lost their homes on Ash Wednesday 1983, despite otherwise good precautions, had no reserve water supply.  At Upper Beaconsfield, Victoria, a distressed householder reported to Drs Geraldine Lazarus and Joy Elley of the NCRFR how he had set up a pump by his swimming pool, forgetting that the electricity had gone off.  His wife put water in the bath and basin, while his sons filled a 44-gallon drum which they then placed on the lawn.  When a spot fire hit they found they had to use buckets because the electrical pump wouldn't work.  One hose melted and the other had no pressure.  'We could have saved the house if we had had water,' he said.  Another had a swimming pool but no pump.  Many who began to bucket water from pools or tanks reported that plastic rubbish bins and buckets disintegrated in their hands. Heat around the homes would not have reached this intensity had the surrounding vegetation been thinned.” (Extracted from The Complete Bushfire Safety Book). 

Details of  water facilities appropriate to individual needs are given in both The Complete Bushfire Safety Book and Essential Bushfire Safety Tips (CSIRO).

Slogans fall short for bushfire safety

Link to Dr Kevin Tolhurst’s article in the Age today, discussing the shortcomings of the bushfire authority’s current slogan ‘Leave and Live’. 

http://www.theage.com.au/comment/slogans-fall-short-for-bushfire-safety-20140112-30osy.html

Slogans fall short for bushfire safety

Living in a bushfire-prone environment is complex and requires more than a lifetime of experience. For most of us, experiencing a bushfire at our back door might only be a once-in-a-lifetime event. Therefore we rely on the knowledge of others to guide us. Condensing it all into three words – "Leave and Live" – is clearly too simplistic......
(Dr  Tolhurst is associate professor, fire ecology and management, at the University of Melbourne.)

The Age Opinion page, December 30/13

Tomorrow (December 30/13) The Age Opinion page 

will publish my article criticising flaws in CFA’s policy bias towards evacuation 

- especially as delivered with their new slogan: ‘Leave and Live’.

A Watch and Act message was issued this afternoon as a medium sized, uncontrolled grassfire was  travelling quickly towards the Great Ocean Road, near Peterborough. Advice was given that ‘conditions may change and get worse very quickly’. The Great Ocean Road had been closed. 

Yet people living and holidaying in the area were advised that ‘leaving now is the safest option’.

Told to leave immediately to ‘the home of family or friends away from the warning area’. How? By the endangered and closed Ocean Road? By the inland route to Colac, through bushland in danger of ember-ignition?  

Leaving when an uncontrolled fire is burning in your area; when your usual exit route is closed and in danger of being impacted at any moment, is the most dangerous time to be attempting to leave.  And against all bushfire authority advice of safety through leaving early. This is not ‘leaving early’!  It is leaving at the last minute. The known cause of most bushfire deaths.  In situations such as this, the safest option is to seek shelter.

In any bushfire threat, there are three safe options: 

safe evacuation, safe home defence, safe shelter. 

Essential Bushfire Safety Tips 
explains how to achieve the option of your choice.

Bushfire Safety Policy must reveal all safe options

The current  Bushfire Safety Policy issued by bushfire authorities states:

"A ‘Code Red’ fire danger rating predicts the worst conditions for a bushfire, 
and ALL residents of high-risk areas 
are advised to leave the night before or early in the day."

Will this include every patient from every hospital & nursing home

& every prisoner  from every gaol to be transported to where? 

– Melbourne or Geelong? On the hottest days? 

Ambulances and prison vans all streaming along on roads 

congested with every evacuating resident from every rural town?

Or to will only the medical staff and prison officers evacuate 

– and leave the patients and prisoners to their own devices?

What of animal hostels, horse studs and vetinerary clinics?  

Will the staff evacuate and leave the animals – some ill in cages - to their fates?

Or will they evacuate the animals with them, 

travelling in confined quarters for long distances on the hottest days, 

subject to death from heat stress?

Bushfire authorities MUST advised the community 

of safe options other than evacuation.

People MUST be advised of the safe ways to achieve the three options 

- safe defence and safe shelter as well as the option of safe evacuation

Essential Bushfire Safety Tips and The Complete Bushfire Safety Book 

explain these options in detail

No need to flee from this

NSW farmers are reported to have fled their properties because a grass fire was approaching them

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-11-09/fires-flair-up-at-kemps-creek-near-sydney/5081106?WT.mc_id=newsmail

This was sparsely vegetated terrain. 

If you have done any kind of vegetation management around your buildings

 and wear protective clothing 

you should have no trouble defending your property from a grass fire. 

In the circumstances of grass fire in sparse, open country, 

why would anyone go off and leave undefended homes, 
animals and crops to probable destruction? 

Is it because of so much official stress on ‘everybody out’ 
in severe conditions 
that they fee from any threat? 

Or have Australians just lost their fighting spirit?

The Complete Bushfire Safety Book and Essential Bushfire Safety Tips

have everything there is to know about saving lives and homes from bushfires.

ABC 4 Corners (Fire in the Wire, October 28, 2013) suggests cutting off electricity on hot, fire-risk days to prevent bushfires. 

173 died in 2009 Black Saturday firegrounds. 

300 died away from the fires, from heat causes. 

To cut off electricity will increase, not lessen, deaths 

Powerlines can cause fires. But deaths & house loss have been proved to be caused by poor personal preparedness & unsafe behaviour

Fire authorities acclaim The Complete Bushfire Safety Book and Essential Bushfire Safety Tips as giving the most thorough, and easily readable, information on everything you can be do to be safe.

FURNISHINGS

Fuel reduction is not just for the bush and garden. Your furnishings are fuel, too.

A bushfire’s embers and flames can cause house ignitions, but the total destruction of houses is caused by the untended burning of its contents. So inside your house needs its own hazard reduction.

When an unattended spark or ember from bushfire is blown inside a house, it smoulders, flares, and fire spreads through furniture and furnishings, clothes and kitchen contents, papers and plastics and fly-sprays and cleaning fluids until only ash and twisted metal remain.

People need to be aware which aspect of houses lead most to the most destruction:

not the cladding, the contents!

Hazardous furnishing fabrics

·        Cotton, rayon, linen, and acrylic.

·        The plastic coating of fibreglass fabrics.

·        Nylon, terylene, and dacron and other synthetics.

·        Polyurethane foam padding. 

Protective furnishing fabrics Cannot be ignited by flame

·        Pure, untreated, heavy quality wool.

·        Natural leather.

·        Good quality vinyl.

Even your wall linings can make the difference between life and death for those sheltering inside a house during a bushfire.  If smouldering, many give off extremely toxic gases.

Stock safety during bushfire

Stock refuges can save farmers crippling restocking costs, years of heartache for pet owners and prevent terrible suffering for hundreds of thousands of animals.

Planning a stock refuge

For best safety, a stock refuge should be on leeward side of the property and in the inner zone of protection. (See Chapter  A protective property layout.) Discuss how and where to create a stock refuge, the best time to herd stock into it. (See Chapter What to do when bushfire threatens) and appoint an emergency musterer. On a mild day, practice herding the stock to it. Get them used to it.

Stock refuge suggestions

·        Ploughed land.

·        A well eaten-out paddock.

·        Paddock planted with a green summer crop such as lucerne..

·        Concrete milking sheds or stables.

·        A nearby green, sheltered open space such as golf links or recreation grounds.

·        Heavily grazed lanes - not tree-lined.

·        Boomerang-shaped dams with soil scooped up on at least two windward sides.

Ø      This gives stock a radiant heat shield, water, and shelter. 

Stock refuges need

·        Firebreaks at least 6 m wide on the usual firewind sides.

·        Hedges as wind/firebreak/radiation shields on at least two windward sides.

·        Water in heat resistant containers.

·        Shade.

·        Enough space to hold all stock. 

Stock refuge tips

·        Clear straw and other flammables from milking sheds or stables.

·        Clear flammable vegetation from earth mounds and trench rims.
·    Fit property with internal gates that can be opened for animals to move to safety

The unfortunate cow in the foreground met this fate because it was in a flammable paddock when bushfire struck.  

The owner of those in the background had put them in a fallow paddock with shade and drinking water in an old bath.  

                                                                                (Picture Katherine E. Seppings)

Wind and firebreaks, spark screens, heat shields can minimise stock losses.

Windbreaks  Most suitable windbreaks to protect crops and grazing stock are permeable hedges such as sticky or silver wattle, with smaller plants beneath.

Spark screens Hedges can act as as multi-purpose spark screens, windbreaks, shade, firebreaks and radiation shields will shelter the animals. They are needed on at least two windward sides 

Firebreaks Firebreaks need to be at least 6 metres wide and on the fireward side of the refuge. 

Metal pickets stood at Strathewen on Black Saturday, 2009
                                               Picture (c) Katherine Seppings

Stone fences around paddocks can stop crop and grassfires. 

Metal drops (star pickets) won’t burn and collapse.

Ø      Auxiliary metal drops stayed upright and intact through the Black Saturday fires.

 Metal flywire between the lower wire and ground can hinder the spread of grass fire.

Fire stopped at this stone fence.
Note intact concrete and metal drop fence in foreground 
 (Picture Katherine E. Seppings)