A bushfire can be devastating as it will tear through your home, leaving you with nothing. Of course, if you have insurance you’ll be able to rebuild the home, but that won’t help with any sentimental pieces that you had to leave behind. The good news is that you can take steps to protect your home from a bushfire.
These can save your home or simply buy you the time you need to get sentimental items out.
Here are some effective ways to protect your property.
Inspect Your Home
The first thing you need to do is visually inspect your home. You are looking for any gaps in your façade, your roof, or even your veranda. These gaps will allow heat and flames to penetrate inside your home. This dramatically increases the risk of your house catching fire from the inside out.
Find any gaps and seal them up.
Install Bushfire Windows & Doors
You can now look at your windows and doors. They are probably high-quality but they are also not bushfire proof. If this is the case it is time to fit bushfire windows.
Your windows are generally one of the biggest issues during a bushfire. They can act as a large magnifying glass which means the heat is magnified and there is enough to set the soft furnishings alight inside your home. The alternative is that the glass gets too hot and shatters. That puts you at risk of glass cuts and lets the fire in.
Bushfire windows and shutters are made of fireproof material in order to prevent this issue. The sooner you fit them the better.
Remove Clutter
Clutter, whether it is stacks of paper, a pile of firewood, or simply leaves in the garden, will ignite under the intense heat of a bushfire. This then adds to the heat and often creates a bridge, allowing the fire to surge forward. In this case, it will move closer to your home.
Tidying the clutter will help to prevent this from being an issue.
Create A Barrier
Bushfires spread because the heat is so intense that the fire can ignite everything in its path. If you remove anything flammable it is hard for the fire to continue in your direction.
The best way of doing this is to create a section of barren land or to build a wall. This won’t contain the fire completely but it will slow it down dramatically. It is likely that the worst you’ll get is a few small fires that can be easily put out.
Remove Flammables
Most homes have a collection of compounds that are flammable and you probably don’t think much about them. This is normal but you do need to consider moving them further away from your home. This will help to ensure your home is safe even if the flammables catch light.
Don’t forget, the aim is to protect your home but you should always have a backup escape plan. Implement this when it looks like you can’t stop the fire from reaching your house.