How to prepare your home for bushfire season: It could save your family's life.

Last bushfire season, eight Australians tragically lost their lives and 400 their homes in catastrophic blazes around the country.

As we approach the core of this year’s season, there’s still time to prepare your home for the worst-case scenario.

Following these helpful tips, courtesy of mygenerator.com.au, and it could save your property.

1. Remove the build up of dead branches, bark or shrubs from around your home. These only provide extra fuel for a fire.
2. If you’re planting a garden, plant trees away from the house so limbs and branches don’t hang over your roof and drop leaves in gutters. These can ignite quickly if burning embers fall on them.
3. Remove leaves and debris from you roof, gutters and downpipes.
4. Remove all flammable material that is within 20m of your property. This includes flammable liquids and newspapers or cardboard that you may have stockpiled for recycling.

It’s not just about ensuring your home is ready – your family must be, too. Putting together a bushfire survival kit will ensure you’re properly equipped for an approaching blaze.

These are some of things to include:

• A bag packed with a change of clothes, any medications, important documents, money/credit cards and fresh of water.
• Electricity supplies are often cut in the event of a fire. A small power generator will allow your family access to small appliances and allow laptops and phones to be charged.
• A portable battery radio ensures you can listen to news updates.
• Good quality torches and long life batteries are imperative.
• A quality high-pressure fire fighting pump to help with any small spot fires and to water your garden/foliage on your property in preparation.

Be prepared, act early and, remember, leaving your home early is always the safest option in a bushfire.

Read more: “What I learned from losing everything in a bushfire.”