Bushfire Information Warnings

Bushfire Information Warnings

Fire may threaten people and property with minimal notice. The community needs to be prepared and have good information to make sound decisions about protection of life and or property.

Bushfires NT will endeavour to provide as much information as possible to help community members make informed decisions, but ultimately it is every landholder’s responsibility to manage their property for fire. This includes taking all measures to ensure their safety by reducing fuels, removing trees from around buildings and installing fire breaks.

Landholders also need to ensure they stay alert to the presence of fire, and the status of the fire weather as it will not always be possible to provide timely warnings to everyone likely to be affected by fast-moving fires.

Under new arrangements, when Bushfires NT disseminates bushfire information, the message will be one of the following three categories:

Bushfire Advice

Under this category a fire has started but there is no immediate danger and the message is for your information only. It alerts individuals to the existence of a fire and allows them to keep up to date with developments. This type of message generally relates to a small fire which is controllable, or a prescribed burn under the hazard abatement program, or a fire burning a long way from homes or structures.

The information message may be delivered through the Bushfires NT website, or passed on to the media for dissemination at a convenient time.

There is no urgency attached.
Bushfire Watch and Act

Alerts you to a fire that is approaching your community, conditions are changing and the fire may threaten your property and possibly your life if not controlled. The fire is most likely to be burning in severe, extreme or catastrophic fire danger conditions and fire authorities’ resources are stretched in attempting to control the fire.

Under this level of alert, community members are advised to protect themselves and their families and properties by initiating their Bushfire Survival Plan. Bushfire Survival Plans may be a prepared written document or a set of procedures developed and practiced with all family members detailing how an approaching fire will be dealt with.

Information will likely be delivered by local radio, in particular the local ABC station. There is a degree of urgency in the dissemination of this message because the earlier you become aware of the situation, the better prepared you will be to act appropriately.
Bushfire Emergency Warning


This message is the highest level of warning. It tells you that a bushfire is about to affect you and you need to take action to save your life immediately. The information in this message will always identify where the fire currently is, its severity, time to impact on your community and what you should do immediately. More information may be included if there is time to do so.

This information will be disseminated most often by local ABC radio and will have a sense of extreme urgency which will require the ABC or other media to break into their programming immediately to broadcast the warning.

In some circumstances, particularly if the fire is burning on a day of “Catastrophic” fire danger, the message may be preceded by the Standard Emergency Warning Signal, which is the same as the signal that accompanies a Cyclone Warning message.

Bushfire Emergency Warning messages may also be distributed by telephone as SMS messages to mobile handsets and voice recording to landlines in a specific area. The information will also be posted on to the Bushfires NT website.

 

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