Fire Meter - Will your house survive?
This calculator
is based solely on research into house losses that occurred during the
1983 Ash Wednesday fire at Mount Macedon, Victoria. It is for houses
exposed to a forest fire which is driven by strong winds on a very hot
day i.e. extreme fire weather conditions. In a forest, assume the calculator
maybe in error by + or - 15%. In grassland or other fuel types it should
be useful but less accurate.
Fire
Intensity
Is the most important factor which determines house survival. Intensity
can be reduced by decreasing the available FUEL on the ground within
at least 40 metres of the house. Trees
Near a house they increase the hazard by a small amount, if however
the fuel load on the ground is reduced then trees can be retained.
Fuel
Load
To measure fuel load measure a 1 metre by 1 metre square on the ground.
Collect all the dead fuel that is thinner than a pencil and weigh it.
Divide this weight by 100 and you have the fuel load in tonnes/hectare. For accurate results obtain several samples around the house and average
the values.
Attendance
During a fire it is important for house survival. Well prepared people
who stay at a properly prepared house throughout a fire can extinguish
small fires and thereby stop a house from burning down. Evacuations
just before a fire arrives are risky. A house or similar building is usually the safest refuge during a fire since it will protect
you from the radiant heat of the fire.
From:
- Assessing
the bushfire hazard of houses: a quantitative approach. A.A.G. Wilson
(1984) Technical Paper No. 6, National Centre of Rural Fire Research.
- Fight
or Flee? - a case study of the Mount Macedon bushfire. A.A.G. Wilson
and I.S. Ferguson (1984). Australian Forestry Vol. 47.
- Predicting
the probrability of house survival during bushfires. A.A.G. Wilson
and I.S. Ferguson (1986). Journal of Environmental Management Vol.
23.
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