With growing bushfire risk for Australians, even in major capital cities, one of the volunteer firefighters has some unusual advice for families.
Amanda Lamont is a volunteer firefighter and resident of an area with the highest bushfire rating Australians are allowed to have homes in.
Ms Lamont said while she often felt perfectly fine putting on her uniform to go and fight fires as the nation’s fire services had an “everyone comes home philosophy”.
What was scary was that there were people thinking that if fire happened there would be a red truck coming down the street to save them.
“Some of these big fires, we are not going in there, it’s too dangerous,” she said.
“But it terrifies me that people aren’t all getting the message.”
Living in the Dandenong Ranges of Victoria she said every year in December she rented a storage locker off of the mountain to store irreplaceable possessions, from family photos to her old school uniform and her first love letter.
She also has a “bit of an odd” daily routine where she mentally prepares herself to lose her home whenever she leaves it, preparing for the possibility that it could be gone when she returns.
“So I’ll say goodbye if I’m leaving to go somewhere for the day in summer,” Ms Lamont said.
RELATED: LA fires: Celebrity homes among 1000s to be impacted in California wildfires
Where some Aussies may not be able to get insurance against disasters by 2030
$42.2bn: how much flood risk is wiping off Aussie home values
A bushfire at Dr Ken Leversha Reserve in Montrosein 2025. Picture: ABC.
The result was that she had less connection to her home in the fire season, removing hurdles to the decision to pack up and leave if the risk became too great and giving her the best chance of coping with the loss if a fire occurred while she was away from the home.
“I live on a beautiful bush block with trees all around my house, so I’m living the experience of extreme bushfire risk,” Ms Lamont said.
Rather than be scared of fires, she said Australians needed to think about the risks they faced and to take as much action as they could themselves.
“The most important part is that we inform people with the knowledge for them to make informed decisions,” she said.
In addition to following some of her own personal approaches, she said people should also make sure they had a clear understanding of how they would receive warnings about weather and fire hazards, plus have a clear plan of how they will respond in the event of a fire in their neighbourhood.
“People need to understand their risk, even in urban cities where they might not think they are at risk of fire.”
Amanda Lamont, volunteer firefighter, has revealed the unusual way she prepares for fire season — but ones that could save other Aussie families heartache.
She added that aiming to reduce the use of fossil fuels in products and energy around the home was also an important step on the household level, as well as for governments.
Ms Lamont has revealed her advice alongside a joint report from Climate Council and Emergency Leaders for Climate Action, a group of former fire chiefs, that included a stark warning that outer suburbs of Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra, Adelaide, Perth and Hobart could all face risks of LA-style blazes.
Alarmingly, their analysis shows that the fires that burned LA had the same characteristics as those behind Black Saturday in Victoria early in 2009.
Sign up to the Herald Sun Weekly Real Estate Update. Click here to get the latest Victorian property market news delivered direct to your inbox.
MORE: ‘Stubborn’: RBA holds rates steady amid inflation
Neighbours demolition sends real Ramsay Street property values soaring
Tones and I splashes $6.4m on Mornington Peninsula property spree
English (US) · 