BUSH fire season is fast approaching and it is time to make sure that all households have a bush fire plan.

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Port Stephens has many areas of bushland and properties adjacent to high risk areas for bushfires.

The environment and climate create a risk to lives and property.

Our actions in the lead up to bush fire season can make all the difference.

Dennis Peters, Captain of Raymond Terrace Fire & Rescue NSW told News Of The Area, “The bushfire danger period for the Port Stephens area has been brought forward to 1 September 2019 due to poor conditions locally.

“We all have a personal responsibility to be prepared for what is predicted to be a nasty bushfire season.

“We encourage everyone to prepare a bushfire evacuation plan.”

Visit https://www.rfs.nsw.gov.au/resources/bush-fire-survival-plan to build your families bush fire survival plan in around 20 minutes.

Building a bush fire survival plan involves four simple steps, discuss, plan, know the alert levels and saving all the right phone numbers, web pages and apps to make getting the right information easy in an emergency.

It is important that people not only have a plan but run through that plan with their families, and make sure you keep an eye on conditions and existing fires in case your home is threatened.

It is important to prepare your home, and know where to find information in an emergency.

“Our crew will be preparing for the bushfire season with dedicated training sessions, patrolling the urban-bush interface, particularly around Lakeside and Riverview Ridge, and making sure our local fire hydrants are in good condition,” he said.

Some of the things we should do now are to clear gutters, and make sure that our bushfire plans include how we move not only people but pets.

The fires near me webpage is an excellent recourse for monitoring bush fires and can be found at https://www.rfs.nsw.gov.au/fire-information/fires-near-me.

Next week read about the different fire warning levels and what we can do as a community to be better prepared.

By Marian SAMPSON