Fire Bunkers


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Access informative sources on the subject of building a fire shelter

If one have been hunting for informative sources with regards tobuilding a fire shelter I hope to guide you in your examination.

With the advent of every summer comes the renewed threat of bushfires and building a fire shelter. Any body living in close proximity to a bushland setting should start reviewing their fire safety plans.

In my home state of Victoria, a place with an unfortunate bush fire history, these plans can be formulated with the local fire brigade who not only hold town meetings on fire safety but will send a representative around to your property to advise on specific things you as a home owner can do to safe guard your possessions and loved ones. These plans include such measures as removing flammable liquids, clearing a fire break, removing trees and shrubs that are likely to burn freely, establishing an adequate water supply and planting a screen of slow burning evergreens on the properties perimeter.

The idea of confronting a serious fire should only be undertaken by people who are both mentally and physically able. If you are planning to evacuate this should be done as early as possible to avoid being trapped by the fire while in transit. The stay or go policy as it is known has been developed in the belief that a well defended home offers the best protection from the radiant heat of a fire front while early evacuation allows people to leave the affected area without hindering emergency vehicles.

Until the ferocious Black Saturday fire of last summer stay or go was considered to be the best response to bush fire threat but the events of that day have called it?s efficacy into question. While this fire was unique in coming at the end of ten years of drought, on a forty two degree Celsius day and fanned by winds of over one hundred kilometers an hour it is feared that global warming will create conditions similar to that fateful day on a much more regular basis. This has led to the review of our bush fire policies and many people are calling for new measures to be put in place.

One measure being re- examined is the use of bush fire shelters. Like the tornado cellars of our U.S.cousins, bush fire refuges are being considered by more private home owners as a reasonable response to the bush fire threat. The arguments in favor of fire shelters have not yet been settled and any body thinking of building one would do well to look at both sides of said argument.

While various materials can be fire rated the shelters currently on the market do not have to meet any official standard. Years ago a shelter might have been nothing more than a hole in the ground, lined with logs and then buried under some dirt but there were many instances where these make shift bunkers were sadly inadequate. Today it is possible to purchase a shelter manufactured with reinforced concrete, fire rated steel and outfitted with first aid kits, independent water supplies and air filtering mechanisms. This level of safety does come at a price however.
The cost of this level of safety might be defrayed by sharing with a neighbour perhaps. Beneath the purpose built shelter there are a number of water tanks and shipping containers that have been modified to act as shelters. Before purchasing any sort of shelter you must consider the level of threat you might reasonably face. For instance people sheltering from a grass fire burning across farmland would require a different level of protection to those sheltering from an enclosed forest fire.

No matter what the outcome of the current debate over fire shelters might be I am sure that a lot of home owners have already decided that they are going to install one regardless. With that thought in mind my closing comment is for anyone considering their own shelter – building a fire shelter, to buy the best that they can afford and to do as much research as possible. Stay safe this summer.

Monday, July 20th, 2009 at 5:15 amand is filed under fire shelters. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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