AIBS National News

The Australian Building Codes Board (ABCB)* will begin work immediately on a national standard for the design and construction of bushfire bunkers for personal use.

Announcing the decision today, ABCB Chairman Mr Graham Huxley AM said the ABCB concurred with 2009 Victorian Bushfires Royal Commission’s intention to bring forward as a matter of urgency interim recommendations on building regulation matters, including the regulation of bushfire bunkers. 

“If government is to adopt policies that encourage voluntary construction of bunkers by individuals, or mandate their use in bushfire prone areas, it will first need a robust set of performance standards to draw on,” Mr Huxley said. 

“The ABCB, as the custodian of the Building Code of Australia (BCA)*, is well placed to facilitate the timely development of the performance standards.  It will also classify bunkers as a structure according to the BCA.

“The ABCB has followed closely evidence tendered to the Commission.  It is also aware of community concerns, which it shares, about the lack of national standards for bunkers at a time of heightened anxiety about the risk of further bushfires.”

Mr Huxley said the ABCB will begin its work supported by the work already done by the Victorian Building Commission.

The Victorian Minister for Planning, Mr Justin Madden MLC, had taken the initiative to alert the ABCB to the desirability of national standards and for the Board to take a leadership role.  While the Victorian Bushfires Royal Commission was dealing comprehensively with these and wider issues, it was nonetheless important for governments to explore opportunities to increase the safety of communities at risk of bushfires.

National action using sound technical and BCA regulatory principles will provide all States and Territories with the essential platform to act quickly.

“The ABCB will draw on a wide range of expertise including Californian fire authorities, who are the only other authorities in the world that have bushfire-related building standards,” Mr Huxley said. “It will also look to other applications of bunker technology across the globe. In that regard, the Board today uploaded on to its website a paper by a senior US specialist in bushfire mitigation, Mr Jon Traw, on international comparisons of bushfire standards.

“The ABCB recognises that a number of policy issues need to be resolved, and the views of the Royal Commission taken into consideration when available. A wide range of challenges face designers of such bunkers, including protection against heat and flame, the need to maintain tenable air quality and a means to communicate with the outside world.

“Without technical standards some products and building materials used to construct bunkers could be dangerous.” 

Mr Huxley said the ABCB fully appreciated that bunkers are not a stand alone solution.  Building standards needed to be part of a wider set of measures to deal with the mitigation of bushfire risk, including effective coordination of efforts by authorities and communities, prediction of fire spread, better education of home owners, clarity in community notification procedures and sound planning and fuel management strategies.

Nevertheless, fire can be unpredictable.  Help from the fire defence effort may not be available to individuals. As the Royal Commission heard, even the best prepared still lost their lives in some cases. Bushfire bunkers, therefore, may offer a place of last refuge in cases where the only other option would be to leave late with all the attendant risks that entails.

The ABCB expects that the standards will be available for use in six months.