mrs_chrispy

Hi,
Given the amount of fires around at the moment I was wondering if it would be worth investing in getting a grands worth of firefighting pump and hose to protect the house in the event of a fire or whether it would be like pissing in the wind and a waste of time. We live on a hill surrounded by bush and after having a chat with a guy in a shop today about what we should get came back more confused then ever. The guy in the shop spent 30 minutes telling me what i should need given the distance we would need to pump and the head of water etc and then said 'mind you, if you get a fire there you wont have a chance, forget trying to fight it, just run'. He did have a hang over and was fighting to remain focused but he wasn't exactly selling it to me. We have a pool with 50,000 litres so would last half an hour at least..so is it worth trying to stay and fight a fire or should you just grab the wife and the cat and leg it.

moneypenny20

I think you'd do better to plan a really good evacuation routine, get a strong box for important papers that can be grabbed quickly. Then regularly do the usual - clear gutters, cut back any over hanging branches, make sure you have a decent fire break around and get on with life.

aston man

im joining the vollies ,,dont worry ill protect ya..

Kapri

Does your local fire station offer advice like they do here?

aston man

the shire do...

Dorothy

My husband was a volunteer firefighter back about 10 years ago when we lived in western Canada. The advice he regularly gave was if you are in danger from the fire then get out. The firefighters have enough to do without trying to rescue homeowners who decide to try to save their houses.

Like Moneypen says, get yourselves a good evacuation plan, a strongbox for important papers and the like and be prepared.

wren

OK dumb question but... what exactly is a fire break? Am I right in thinking it is just a clearing of land? Or is there more to it?

aston man

it stops for five mins to have a kit kat and a cup of tea

cresta57

Yep it's a case of clearing all trees & shrubs for a 3m [bare minimum] perimeter around your property then keeping the grass mowed short.
Our fire plan is 10 m firebreaks around the block and no trees closer than 5 m around the house. We keep the vegetation 1m around the boundary poisoned to prevent fire creeping across the breaks. We have external taps with hose fittings on each corner of the house for damping down & keep 2 new hose pipes in the house for emergency use. Past loses in our area were due to home fire fighting equipment being left outside as the fire's swept through leaving no means of damping down.
All of us in the house are volunteers in the Rural Fire Brigade, Josh & I are active fire fighters, Deb is first aid officer.
In the event of a serious bush fire our home is classed as defendable i.e can be damped down to prevent total loss.
All that taken into account we would still leave it & flee if the fire was deemed bad enough.

Weasy

We've got together with a few of our neighbours and have got the CFS education officer coming out to do a series of meetings to educate us, walk through our properties and help us create our bush fire action plan. We are to have two plans, one to prepare the properties as best we can and leave early and the other how to fight fire if we can't leave early (fire too close, on our exit route etc.). The CFS are incredibly helpful with this and the local commander is ecstatic that a group of residents are getting together rather than the every man for himself attitude. Perhaps you could do the same? Or just get the CFS out to assess your property and help create your own bush fire action plan.

Lou
xx

chrispy

Hiya Marcus,
Good to hear you are going to join the local lot, reckon they can get quite busy during summer!! I thought you had to be resident for a couple of years before you got to join? To get advice do we just pitch up or phone and someone takes the time to come out and advise? One of our problems is that although we have a fire break we are on a hill with very tall trees so the fire would probably jump it pretty easily.
When are you getting trained, if you fancy advising us who are less clued up we can provide the kitKat and beers. One thing i always wondered, probably a dumb question but if you were trapped would jumping in the pool help or would all the oxygene just be sucked out or would the water get too hot.. just curious, as i said, would probably be a dumb thing to do and probably only works for James Bond.

Weird this Christmas lark in mid summer, normally you stay in because it wet and cold!

Have a great New Year

Weasy

You'd boil in the pool!!!

We emailed the CFS through the SA website and they phoned us up to arrange to come out.

Lou
xx

aston man

i have a friend that works for the shire,,im going to see her in the next couple of days,,im going to get all the info i can for you..

do you want me to ask her if she can get a ranger to pop round?

how about that?

perhaps next year we can meet up for a couple of scoops..

happy new year to all the crispys..

chrispy

That would be great, we have had a fire officer inspection a few weeks ago while we were at work, i had cut back a load of the trees that overhung the roof and had them in a pile which he told me to get rid of, something i was going to do (hence the shredder thread a while ago), so have now bought a bunnings shredder which works better than i expected so if you need some shreddind done (less than 40mm) you can rent it for a pint
Having never had to seriousley consider going up in smoke any advice would be great so if you know of a ranger who wouldn't mind poping over in the evening or weekend then that would be great, otherwise advice would be good, personally i think if the fires are as devestating as they seem then a fire hose and pump won't help much and the best option would be to run..heartbreaking though it would be, problem is you never quite know what you would do in that situation and we are sort of attached to our house.

Enjoy the rest of the hols and see ya for a beer sometime..

Cheers

Chris

aston man

chris i have to be honest,i never give the fires a second though,like you ive done all i can...
i havent seen one yet..you obviously know about the one last year that that bloke started and wiped half the hill out..only took one house out though..
i looked on my insurance and it say something about not being insured for damage by heat,i presume that means the sun?