United States
£ GBP
By the author of the acclaimed The Complete Bushfire Safety Book, this new edition of Joan Webster OAM's Essential Bushfire Safety Tips has been revised and updated. Essential Bushfire Safety Tips deals with people's fears and concerns following Victoria's 2009 Black Saturday bushfires and a maze of new official safety policies. Its concise and straightforward style clears a path of understanding through the tangle of conflicting opinions and misconceptions.
It identifies the shortcomings and likely adverse repercussions of some of these policies, defines the actions necessary for people to stay safe during a bushfire – and their homes to remain intact – and sets out safe procedures.
This updating of Essential Bushfire Safety Tips reveals the scientific post-Black Saturday research into why people who stayed with their homes died during the fires, and shows that, despite the almost universal media reports that 'nothing could be done to save homes on such a day', many householders did, in fact, save their homes.
Included are new chapters on township protection; shelters, refuges and bunkers; as well as new information on choices of safe home bushfire strategies; protective house design, furnishings and gardens; protection of animals; and first aid.
Essential Bushfire Safety Tips fills the gap between bushfire authority brochures and long, in-depth books. Backed by scientific facts, it brings a message of hope and empowerment: that with appropriate knowledge, preparation and awareness, towns, homes and people can survive bushfires.
Set out in easy-to-access dot-point one-liners, it demystifies bushfire behaviour, explains how to prevent a bushfire from destroying houses, details the safe way to act at each stage of threat, describes weather factors and safe burning-off, details the benefits and hazards of staying, non-defensive sheltering, and evacuating, and how to make the decision on which course is best for you.
Foreword
Acknowledgements
About the author
Introduction
1 Understanding bushfire
2 The killer factors
3 The survival factors
4 How bushfire destroys houses
5 The home as a haven
6 A protective home site
7 A protective property layout
8 A protective garden
9 A protective house design
10 Protective furnishings
Joan Webster OAM is an award winning journalist who since 1965 has written extensively on bushfire safety for the public. In 1990 she received the Australian Fire Protection Association’s Community Service Award. In 2010 she received the Order of Australia 'For service to the community in raising awareness of bushfire safety'.
"This book could save your life."
- Phil Cheney PSM, bushfire scientist
"Your book made a huge difference to my sense of empowerment before, during and after the fire. It saves lives."
- Community Fireguard facilitator, Darlington, WA
"Your book was critical in helping to save our house on Black Saturday."
- Householder, Taggerty, Vic.
"Your book enabled my daughter to save their own place and a neighbour's."
- Householder, Chewton, Vic.
"Your books have taken the fear out of summer."
- Householder, Wombat Forest, Daylesford, Vic.
