10 February 2009

What's your fire plan?

| V twin venom
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What would you do?

In light if the horrific Victorian fires and the still fresh (6 years) memories of the 2003 Canberra fires, what is your fire plan? We stood and fought the Canberra firestorm and thankfully had a reasonable outcome.

I live in the north western part of Kambah and was able to plan, prepare, fight and panic as the firestorm storm ripped over the hill and ravaged my neighbourhood…… I still don’t have a back door neighbor.

In Victoria, our countrymen and women seem to have had plans in place to counter/deal with/fight, such events yet the toll is gut wrenching. They were brave and they fought hard (My heart is with you all).

Have we in the ACT learned anything here! Are any of you ready? Do you have a plan?

If you have a basic plan, share it.

Briefly describe your location and how you plan to survive a beast of this proportion.

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I would do the same as i did when the fires came through our area….
1. block drainpipes with cloth, fill gutters with water.
2. set soaker hose on ridgeline of roof, spraying either side of roof.
3. put box of photos and important documents into boot.
4. cage cats and load into front of car.
5. get kids into car, with their overnight bags, toys and teddies.
6. drive away, not looking back.

Things I won’t do:
1. try and stop spot fires in thongs, jeans and a singlet.
2. leave my clothes in a bag on the bed.
3. listen to any of the commercial FM radio stations
4. continually phone my father to see if he is alive or not.
5. stand out the front with the neighbors, watching a massive wall of fire heading for us.

We are looking at installing security screens, but I am very conscious of that issue. I have seen some that have an internal mechanism that spring open and out when you press down on the inside of the frame

I once asked someone at a shopping centre display about escapeability of the roller shutters. They said it was possible to push them out from the inside – when I asked if a 3-5yo child could do this they said no.

I actually WANT to be able to get into my child’s room from outside the house if necessary in an emergency, or for a firey to be able to do the same. She has been told that if she can’t get out of her room in a fire to stand between the curtain and the window and yell for help from a grown-up. Can’t do that with roller shutters!

Our fire plan (Weston Ck within 100m of several post-bushfire houses) = remove vulnerable household members well in advance (eg if they forecast awful fire conditions similar to 2003) then return with additional people to defend the house (again).

Ruby Wednesday9:33 pm 11 Feb 09

Gungahlin Al said :

Off topic a bit, one thing that I find quite shocking is the number of houses that still have iron bars on the windows to keep burglars out, including some quite new ones. If your house catches fire you can be completely trapped with no way of escaping out the window.

This I don’t get – the other side is glass. I’ve found chairs and glass don’t go too well together.

Many glass windows are surprisingly strong in the middle. Depending on what type of glass was used, I am reliably informed that you can toss a brick at it or whack it with a chair and it will not break. The real vulnerability is at the very edge, which is why lots of forced entries to homes involve people using a screwdriver as a lever at the edge of the glass, causing it to shatter, and then as it is safety glass they just push out the relevant part.

Ainslie, one street from the bush.

FIRE PLAN:

1) Check elderly neighbours, then leave, early

unless its a small fire, in conditions of low fire danger, low heat, minimal wind, from one direction, with no other warnings current.

Build myself a concrete bunker in preparation!

Actually that’s what I heard last night as an option in a review of the strategies for fire-prone areas (like in tornado-prone areas of USA) instead of the stay and defend your homes advice. Makes sense with the speed these recent fires have come through.

I lived in Victoria after Ash Wednesday, and for ages after that there were ads on telly showing what to do in case of approaching fire, and how to best shelter in your house or your car.

I was surprised there was nothing like that here after the 2003 fires. Perhaps there should be a national ad campaign to tell people the basics.

YEah – I think lighting break fires around you is a bit ambitious – if you have time to do that, you have time to just leave instead.

The fires here burnt some houses flat in minutes, and left the one next door, so you don’t know exactly where it is going anyway.

Another thing to think about early is to find all your full cotton and wool long clothes and get them out ready in case you need them. It was amazing in 03 how little 100% wool or cotton we had in the house – blankets too.

p1 said :

Outside an urban area, in a last ditch situation, if there wasn’t an already burnt area nearby, then I’d probably burn one myself and park the car in the middle of it…

In this situation this is exactly what I would do. Especially in a grassland area. Of course the reality of an overrun situation with a running grass fire might be that you have no time to think, let alone take action.

So, in order to save yourself you would consider taking an action which could end up robbing the people further along the fire path of the extra time they need to escape?

Well I plan on joining the volunteers this year so I guess when the next bushfire comes to Canberra I’ll have to go and fight it.

My hope is simply that I don’t lose my family while doing it, like the poor volunteer in Vic that I saw on the news.

VYBerlinaV8_the_one_they_all_copy10:29 am 11 Feb 09

If it looked like we were going to have a problem, I’d grab the family, pets and whatever documents and pics I could and leave. Everything else is insured and replaceable.

Outside an urban area, in a last ditch situation, if there wasn’t an already burnt area nearby, then I’d probably burn one myself and park the car in the middle of it…

In this situation this is exactly what I would do. Especially in a grassland area. Of course the reality of an overrun situation with a running grass fire might be that you have no time to think, let alone take action.

digga; yeah. the original proposal did allow for power to be fed into the main grid at peak times and emergencies. Until some nimby’s went and got it canned. I know giving out false and misleading information is the m.o. of CPR but please don’t insult my intelligence by trying it on me.

In case you missed my point before it is hypocritical of you to talk about the need for a secondary power source while engaging in a campaign to block a proposal which would have provided that capability.

Gungahlin Al9:53 am 11 Feb 09

Off topic a bit, one thing that I find quite shocking is the number of houses that still have iron bars on the windows to keep burglars out, including some quite new ones. If your house catches fire you can be completely trapped with no way of escaping out the window.

This I don’t get – the other side is glass. I’ve found chairs and glass don’t go too well together.

Sepi: I said cars ready, not running. Said keys in them, because of all the people trying to run but unable to find their keys in the smoke.

As for taking off in a car, clearly this led to a lot of deaths. Except where people used them only to get through the fire to already burnt areas then stayed in their cars. I feel running away from a fire that’s about to hit is a bit like trying to swim against a rip. Outside an urban area, in a last ditch situation, if there wasn’t an already burnt area nearby, then I’d probably burn one myself and park the car in the middle of it…

As I said earlier, my plan would be to defend my home, and bailing would only be if the house was clearly indefensible. But these are the plans in my head only, and I’m not promoting it to anyone else. To stay or go is a personal thing, and would depend a lot on what experience one has in the face of fires. Like many I guess, I’ve spent a lot of time listening to interviews of people who escaped whether by accident or design, and trying to learn from that, then assimilating it all into plans and contingencies. Hope I never need to test it.

tom-tom: Nope. Gas-Fired Power Station is for data centre power only. No power for you as citizen to get your emergency broadcasts.

The cat did it9:21 am 11 Feb 09

Have a look at the ESA Home Emergency Plan checklist- it seems to cover all the important stuff, but it’s a clumsily laid out Word document. Very amateurish, and not the kind of thing that would give me much confidence in the organisation that produced it. Haven’t they heard of PDFs yet?

Holierthanthou11:12 pm 10 Feb 09

scream and run in circles

Ruby Wednesday10:52 pm 10 Feb 09

2604 said :

Ruby Wednesday said :

Belconnen. Leave early. Things can be replaced; that’s what insurance is for.

This is my attitude too.

Off topic a bit, one thing that I find quite shocking is the number of houses that still have iron bars on the windows to keep burglars out, including some quite new ones. If your house catches fire you can be completely trapped with no way of escaping out the window. Seems like a big price to pay for protecting possessions that you can always buy more of.

We are looking at installing security screens, but I am very conscious of that issue. I have seen some that have an internal mechanism that spring open and out when you press down on the inside of the frame (Crimsafe ones), which are my preference regardless of cost. My father’s childhood home burned down a few years after his mother sold it. Everyone inside died because there were bars on the window.

My plan is to run away as if I’m being chased by a thousand screaming banshees…

Hey that’s my plan too! lol

Ruby Wednesday said :

Belconnen. Leave early. Things can be replaced; that’s what insurance is for.

This is my attitude too.

Off topic a bit, one thing that I find quite shocking is the number of houses that still have iron bars on the windows to keep burglars out, including some quite new ones. If your house catches fire you can be completely trapped with no way of escaping out the window. Seems like a big price to pay for protecting possessions that you can always buy more of.

I would leave at the first sign of any trouble. I’m just not sure if it is better to all go in one car, or take two.

– Al – the local school may not be far enough to go. In 2003 people were first evacuated to Erindale College, and then that whole evacuation centre was evacuated to Phillip College.

Also – the pessimist in me would not leave the cars running with keys in, in case someone else was desperate to get away and drove off in them. I wouldn’t want to be leaving it so late that the minute to turn on the engine would matter anyway.

Holden Caulfield3:32 pm 10 Feb 09

Get wife, then GTFO.

In the face of such danger, nothing else matters.

My plan is to get my wife, child and dog to a safe place, and then I’ll make the choice as to if it’s safe to go home and defend the house.

I helped my Grandparents defend their house in the 03 fires, it was the scariest sh*t I’d ever done in my life, that said i’d do it again in a heartbeat.

Digga said :

We need basic infrastructure – the Government still hasn’t delivered a second power line to “feed” Canberra. It’s 6 years on and still, if we lose the substation at Holt (near West Macgregor), with no power Canberra will struggle to communicate with people (think power to radios, TV sets etc. where you get your source of emergency information). Mass panic will result.

Recently some plans were in with ACTPLA to build a substation at Williamsdale and feed power up to Theodore. The period for comments closed in January. Andrew Barr as the Minister for Planning exempted them from requiring an EIS (Environmental Impact Statement) so they could just get on and build it. I expect they’ll get it up and running in a couple of years, so let’s hope Holt doesn’t burn any time sooner.

wasn’t there going to be a gas fired powerstation (and data centre) in hume which would have provided for such an enventuality?

gee whiz, if one of the whinging nimbys who sulked until the project got canned made a comment like digga’s here they’d look mighty silly.

I have a large blanket, 20L of water and some eye washing water in my vehicle. My plan is to help where I can.

We need basic infrastructure – the Government still hasn’t delivered a second power line to “feed” Canberra. It’s 6 years on and still, if we lose the substation at Holt (near West Macgregor), with no power Canberra will struggle to communicate with people (think power to radios, TV sets etc. where you get your source of emergency information). Mass panic will result.

Recently some plans were in with ACTPLA to build a substation at Williamsdale and feed power up to Theodore. The period for comments closed in January. Andrew Barr as the Minister for Planning exempted them from requiring an EIS (Environmental Impact Statement) so they could just get on and build it. I expect they’ll get it up and running in a couple of years, so let’s hope Holt doesn’t burn any time sooner.

Woody Mann-Caruso11:53 am 10 Feb 09

In 2003 we loaded the car and got ready to leave. I blocked the gutters and filled them with water (surreal experience – with wind and smoke and the black-red sky the guy across the road wandered over to tell me that there were water restrictions on); filled the bath and sinks with water, turned off the mains and the gas. All our docs (passports, birth certificate, wills etc) are in a box and scans are in our Gmail accounts; everything else is already digital and backed up hourly on an external 320gb drive. Our escape route was away from the nearby ridge – south-east, then east to Queanbeyan; from there we’d head to the coast road then to relatives in Sydney if things got pear-shaped.

Oh and I live in Ngunnawal (Hunters Hill area) close to undeveloped green brown space.

No way would i stay to protect my house, everything is overinsured – and after frontline experience in 03, if a bushfire wants your house, nothing you can do IMO.

I have a box with all our documents filed.

A wallet with CD’s (Photos etc)

Take them 2 things with one of our cars and Mrs Danman and our pets.

The rest can burn.

Ruby Wednesday said :

Belconnen. Leave early. Things can be replaced; that’s what insurance is for.

My thoughts exactly.
I printed off the Home Emergency Plan Worksheet from the ACT Emergency Services Agency website yesterday and went through it lastnight.
All fairly common sense stuff really, but a couple of things I hadn’t thought about.

Gungahlin Al10:42 am 10 Feb 09

We’re in Harrison so fairly buffered, but there are grasslands and woodlands not too far away for us to be entirely safe from ember attack. So that’s where my focus is. Plus neighbouring houses burning too I guess…

I have a MS Windows SkyDrive – 25GB of free online storage, so I can occasionally upload all my photo files, pics or scans of important documents, etc. So I don’t have to worry about protecting such things if it came to crunch time. That’s the thing that always seems to bother people most – lost memories. And it doesn’t matter if I’m home or away.

Roof is tin and the Anticon squashed under the tin seals the bottom edge against ember attack. The gutters are enclosed Smartflo so don’t need cleaning out. But I’m considering putting gate valves and hose inlets on each downpipe so I can backfill them as well.

All the windows are laminated, so they won’t explode in as many places in Vic had happen.

Doors are all sealed with flaps on the bottom and edge strips around the rest. Still have to get the sealing strips for garage rolladors – they’re call Embaseal.

Turn off gas line. Get rid of the barby gas cylinder. Cars outside ready to go. keys in them. Fill bath tub, buckets, etc. Get towels wet around doors as backup barrier and blankets ready. Get woollen clothes, heavy hat, boots on, facemask, leather gloves and safety goggles ready. Keep battery powered radio handy (need to check for second set of batteries). Connect Karcher and get ladders under each manhole so can monitor/damp any ember penetration into ceiling (maybe even wet down ceiling insulation). The nearby school would be a safe zone for the family to evacuate to, grabbing only clothes, toiletries and foods, cat (nah – maybe not the cat – had enough of her…). Contact relatives about plans.

Still need to protect the power line in and water line out of the submersible pump in the 9000L water tank. Need a second hose too. List needs some ticking…

Ruby Wednesday10:37 am 10 Feb 09

Belconnen. Leave early. Things can be replaced; that’s what insurance is for.

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