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| |Home|Fire Safety| Buying a Block and Setting Up House| | ||||||
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Fire Safety |
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| Buying a Block and Setting up House | ||||||
| If you are buying a block of land and building a new house on it, you have the opportunity to exercise greater control over fire safety considerations. In buying an older property with an existing house, you just have to make the best of what you have got. In either case there may be competing considerations in relation to lifestyle and land use. A 100% fireproof property would probably be a pretty boring place to live, but sensible compromises and doing what can be done can greatly minimise the risk of damage if a fire comes through your property. | ||||||
| When first looking at a block, with or without a house on it, an important consideration is one of access. A long winding narrow track through the scrub may be very romantic, but can a fire truck get in safely in an emergency? Furthermore, can it turn around easily and get out again? In a real hot one, lives are more important than property and if the firefighters can't get out safely, they won't be allowed to go in. Fire trucks come in a range of sizes, but in order to protect a house they need to be able to bring a large tanker in. If you are not sure just how much room you need to leave for this purpose, come on down to the Fire Station on almost any Friday evening or on the afternoon of the second Saturday of the month, which is training day, and ask to have a look at the trucks. If the troops know you are considering their safety they will be more than delighted to show you. |  |
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This is our standard Category 1 Isuzu tanker. Will it fit through your front gate and driveway? |
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| Access is also important should you need to evacuate. A scarey experience in the local area with fire trucks trying to go in while residents were trying to get out of a single access road resulted in some extra road accesses and greater consideration to this matter in local development planning, but it is worthwhile putting this on your list of considerations when deciding whether this really is the rural block of your dreams. | ||||||
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If you are building your own house, you can plan the location for maximum safety. Fire travels fast up steep westerly facing slopes because of the direction of the prevailing wind. The steeper the slope, the faster it will travel. Narrow valleys or ravines can act as chimneys to accentuate the effect. While you may feel that it is aethetically undesirable to build at the bottom of a hill in the middle of a mosquito infested swamp, you can still optimise your location for both lifestyle considerations and fire safety provisions. A house perched at the top of a hill above a westerly facing ravine full of uncleared dead undergrowth is at the seriously undesirable end of the spectrum. An easterly slope will generally be safer than a westerly slope. A gentle slope is generally safer than a steep one. A gentle slope to the east would score more safety points than a steep slope to the west. Location should also take into account the presence or absence of combustible fuel and its location with respect to the prevailing wind. A zone of clearance around the house and a safe access to the gate are also considerations. If the house is there already, fire safety considerations should come into assessing its desirablility as a residence and if there are some negative considerations, other options for minimising risk should be contemplated. | |||||
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If a fire is driven up a steep slope by the prevailing wind, the chimney effect accelerates its speed and ferocity. |
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If the wind is blowing down the slope, it retards the fire and decreases its intensity. |
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| If you are building your own house, then the fire safety of the materials and method of construction should be taken into account, subject to budgetary considerations and other practicalities. Weatherboard construction rates pretty low on fire safety, brick rates pretty high. A house on a concrete slab is generally safer than one on piles which can allow wind, sparks and conbustible debris to blow underneath. Information on the fire safety rating of materials and methods of construction should be available through your builder, so the smart money is on making sure the issue is discussed in the planning of the building. Something which sometimes just happens on an ad hoc basis is the location of outbuildings. Haysheds or fuel depots should be at a safe distance from the house, and preferably not on the side of the prevailing wind. | ||||||
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