Preparing For Bushfire
If you live in on or near bushland, you are at risk from a bushfire and developing a bushfire plan is critical. Being prepared for a bushfire can help save you and your family’s lives, your property and your livelihood.
Are you and your family at risk?
You need to think about the bushfire risk to your family and home:
- Do you live in or near bush?
- Does your local area have a bushfire history?
- Do you have trees and shrubs within 20 metres of your house?
- Is your house built on a slope?
- Is your bushfire survival plan more than one year old?
If you answered yes to one or more of these questions then being impacted by a bushfire is a real risk to you and your family. You need to have a bushfire plan and keep it updated.
When developing your plan decide together if you will leave for a safer place, which may be to relocate to family or friends, or stay to actively defend your home. Make sure you write everything down.
- If you live alone consider creating a plan with a neighbour or friend.
- Everybody should have their own tasks and have a list of actions to take if there is a bushfire.
- Keep your bushfire plan in an easy to find place and make sure everyone knows where it is.
- Practice your plan regularly and review it every year.
Your best chance of surviving a bushfire is to plan in advance and be prepared for the decisions you will have to make about leaving or staying and defending.
Visit the DFES Website by clicking the image below download the app to your smartphone, and develop your Bushfire Plan today.
Useful Resources
Preparing your property for a bushfire
Prepare your bushfire plan
Bushfire warning system & Fire danger ratings in WA
Firefighting equipment you need to stay and defend
How to find shelter if it is too late to leave your property
Preparing your Emergency Evacuation Kit
Preparing your Emergency Kit to stay and defend
Travelling during a bushfire
All DFES bushfire resources
Storm Safety & Preparedness
Dangerous storms are the most common natural hazard in Australia.
Every year from May to October, storms including tornados, lightning, hail, flash flooding and gale force winds cause major destruction to the southern half of WA.
As storms are unpredictable and generally impact a small area, their devastating impact is often underestimated.
Storms not only cause damage to homes, property and businesses, they also pose a threat to people, animals and the environment.
Here are a few things you can do to prepare your home and families for storms:
- Trim branches around your home to prevent them falling on your roof or car.
- Clear gutters and downpipes so they do not overflow after heavy rain.
- Store or weigh down loose objects around your home or work, such as outdoor furniture that could be picked up and thrown by strong winds, causing damage or injury.
- Prepare an emergency kit with a battery operated radio, torch, spare batteries and first aid kit.
- Have an emergency plan ready to put into action, including a relocation plan for your family and pets in case your home becomes flooded.
- Remember, if a storm has badly damaged your home and you can't safely fix it yourself, SES volunteers are there to help. If you need assistance call 132 500.
Keep up-to-date during a storm by visiting emergency.wa.gov.au, calling 13 DFES, following DFES on Facebook and Twitter and listening to ABC local radio and other news bulletins.
For information on how to prepare you home for potential flooding using sandbags, click here.
Download the DFES guide to Storm Preparation here
Flooding
Often during storm events, major flooding can pose a risk to homes and lives.
Prepare for a flood
During a flood
Recovering from a flood
In circumstances where flooding is a possibility, visit Emergency WA for the most up-to-date information and warnings.
Training
The Bushfire of Excellence training team offers several online courses to the general public. The following are publicly available and free to attend:
Bushfire Fundamentals
Bushfire Fundamentals provides a basic awareness of bushfire and is available to anyone interested in learning more about bushfire. The course is specifically targeted at personnel supporting Incident Management Teams or utility companies, St John WA, contractors, WA Police and Department of Defence working at bushfire incidents. The course provides an overview of bushfire characteristics and behaviour, bushfire safety and survival, the Australasian Inter-Service Incident Management System (AIIMS) and the role of WA fire agencies in bushfire response.
The course can be accessed via the DFES Learning and Development eAcademy portal.
For more information, please read the Course Information Sheet.
Rural Fire Awareness
Rural Fire Awareness is targeted at farmer response brigades and seasonal workers to provide students with a basic awareness of fireground safety, suppression strategies and maintaining their safety when operating on a fireground.
The course can be accessed via the DFES Learning and Development eAcademy portal.
For more information, please read the Course Information Sheet.
How To Stay Informed
In the event of an emergency situation, the Shire of Northam will provide as many updates as possible, however this should not be your only source of updates regarding your safety. Please refer to the Emergency WA website in the first instance, and treat Shire of Northam updates as supplementary information only. All emergency calls should be made to the numbers below.
Further to advise from DFES, it is important you know how to access different information sources to stay up to date when travelling in WA because there may not be reliable telecommunications in remote areas. Radio tends to be a reliable source of information during outages, so ensure you have a battery-operated radio.