PREPARING for bushfire season may not only save your life but the lives of others around you.
In the Scenic Rim, bushfire season falls between July and February with the most high-risk period typically starting in October due to its hot, dry and windy conditions.
When preparing for bushfire season, it’s important to clear any bushfire hazards around your property by trimming trees, mowing grass, removing flammable material around your home and clearing vegetation.
Bushfires can be unpredictable, so it’s essential to have a contingency plan that identifies options if you are caught in a fire.
If you feel that your house may be at risk during bushfire season, make sure to have your house number displayed from the road and ensure there is room for fire trucks to access your property in case of an emergency.
Responsibilities
According to Queensland Fire Department, managing Queensland’s bushfire risk is a shared responsibility.
However, as a landowner, you are legally responsible for managing bushfire hazards on your property. If a fire starts, you are legally responsible for taking all reasonable steps to report the fire and prevent the fire leaving your property.
If a fire officer becomes aware of a potential bushfire hazard, such as an excessive fuel load, on a particular property, the officer is authorised under the Fire Services Act 1990 to undertake a site inspection to discuss what may be necessary to reduce the risk of bushfire to your property, including:
- improving firebreaks or conducting a hazard reduction burn,
- removing or disposing of any vegetation or flammable material,
- obtaining and maintaining equipment for firefighting purposes,
- ensuring there is an adequate water supply on your property for firefighting purposes, or
- ensuring there is a safe escape from the property.
Officers are authorised to formally direct landowners to comply with measures considered necessary to protect the community, or to take necessary measures on the landowner’s behalf, at the landowner’s cost.
Survival Plan
The Queensland Fire Department has an online Bushfire Survival Plan that offers information about securing your property when a fire is near.
The plan provides information for two possible options: leaving early, and stay and defend, to help guide people towards creating a plan tailored to their situation.
Make sure everyone in your household knows the plan, and don’t forget to plan for your animals.
Tamborine Mountain Rural Fire Brigade (RFB) First Officer Sam Webster encourages residents who have survival plans to keep them updated.
He says that people who don’t have a plan already should start one.
“When a bushfire starts, it’s often pretty stressful and you won’t have the time and the headspace that you think you will to make all those decisions,” Sam said.
“If you make the plan, then you’ve made all those decisions with a level head way ahead of time.”
Keep it Clean
Sam also encourages residents to keep their properties clean and remove anything combustible away from the house.
He says that residents should keep their gutters, yard and paddocks clean, as well as be cautious about dead branches and firewood nearby.
“With the warmer weather, it’s a nice time to be outside, so it’s a good time to do that general yard clean-up,” Sam said.
He recommends residents to stay in touch with the Bureau of Meteorology as it has the fire danger rating on it.
For more information about preparing your home, the Bushfire Survival Plan, visit www.fire.qld.gov.au.
Fire Wardens
Guanaba: 0477 773 381
Tamborine Mountain: 0400 741 591
Tamborine National Park: 0448 175 627
Tamborine Village:
Trevor Henderson 0409 642 500
Permits are required for fires larger than two metres in any direction.
For more information visit www.fire.qld.gov.au
