The ABCB  has announced the release of a Performance Standard for the design and construction of private bushfire shelters.  It is available free of charge on the board's website at www.abcb.gov.au 

The Standard aims to provide a tenable environment for occupants during the passage of untenable conditions in a bushfire.  It is to help lower the risk of serious injury or fatality.  It is based on available technical data, the input and judgment of a multi-disciplined expert reference group and in consultation with a range of stakeholders. 

However, the Standard and private bushfire shelters are not stand alone solutions to protect people in bushfires.  As the board has made clear in the past, building standards need 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.

The Chairman of the ABCB, Mr Graham Huxley, stated that, “the 2009 Victorian Bushfires Royal Commission identified that there were no standards for the design of private bushfire shelters and recommended that a standard be developed for future referencing in the Building Code of Australia.”  In September 2009, the ABCB announced its intention to commence work on the development of a national standard in terms consistent with the recommendations of the Royal Commission.  The board committed to develop a standard within six months.

“The development of this Standard proved to be complex primarily because we could find no similar standards available internationally. We appear to have effectively created the world’s first standard for private bushfire shelters”.

The document is availible for members to download when they login to the AIBS members portal.