Bushfire assessment

In Victoria, I'm not sure about other states of Australia, you will need to get a bushfire assessment if building in any rural area no matter what you think the risk to your property is. This bushfire assessment is part of the building permit process and most building surveyors will probably be able to recommend someone in your area.

The assessment basically consists of a trained assessor going to site to look around and then making determinations of the level of risk associated with the surrounding vegetation. There are many different classifications and more information will be available from the assessor.

The different rating that the assessor gives the property and the location of the house will determine things like what precautions you would need to take. In some cases like ours we are at a sufficient distance from the nearest fire source that we don't need to change the building in any way. However additions like fire shutters or fire suppression systems might be needed, however your assessor will advise on what systems or modifications are required.

As part of this process you will need to have positioned your house or building on the site that you have obtained from the survey plan. The reason you need to do this is so the assessor can check how close the house will be to the nearest fire source.

The assessment only cost a few hundred dollars and it pays to have the information up front so you can make any changes you need to straight away rather than having to quickly change something when applying for the building permit.