Key takeaways
- Consider working with local partners to help your residents and communities be aware of the risks posed by wildfires, how they can be prepared, and what to do if one occurs.
- Consider how to support your residents to maintain and manage parts of their home and gardens to reduce the risk of wildfires starting or spreading.
- Consider offering training to colleagues who work in areas at heightened risk from wildfire to support residents to be aware and prepared, and to identify any wildfire risks, like heaps of dried leaves near fences.
- Consider how to support your residents to access home contents insurance, making sure that any policies they take over cover damage from wildfire.
Identifying and responding to wildfire risk will require residents who live in your homes to be aware, and take some actions to reduce the risk.
There are seven types of information and support that may be helpful to consider. Sometimes, providing residents with information about risks to their homes can be challenging for housing providers, and can cause residents to worry. You may therefore want to consider how you can support the initiatives of local partners, such as fire and rescue services or Local Resilience Partnerships, rather than providing information directly to residents yourself.
However you do it, you should also ensure that you consider the principles of inclusive communication and the requirements in the Regulator of Social Housing’s Consumer Standards to provide clear, accessible, relevant, timely and appropriate information in a range of formats. If you choose to provide information to residents directly, either instead of or alongside working with local partners like fire and rescue services, this can include the use of social media, your website, newsletters or other printed information you send to residents, community noticeboards, working with local partners and media, through resident group meetings, and so on.
If you choose to work primarily with local partners to support them to disseminate information in places where you have homes, you could consider supporting them with how to make the language and guidance they produce accessible for your residents.
The seven types of action you should be considering are as follows.
Being aware and prepared for the risk
Generally, residents who live in homes that might be at higher risk due to their geographical location should be supported to learn and understand more about wildfires. This can include information about what they are; how they are caused; the risk of both direct flames and embers; and the possible dangers they pose to life and home. As noted above, it may be more effective and appropriate to not do this directly yourself, but to consider supporting local partners such as fire and rescue services to disseminate their information to communities where you have homes.
You may also want to consider developing a version of Residential Personal Emergency Evacuation Plans (Residential PEEPs) for residents, or supporting residents to undertake a home fire safety check in areas of high wildfire risk, especially for residents who may struggle to evacuate themselves in the event of a wildfire. This can also include a personalised evacuation plan, with a list of essentials and important documents each member of the household (including any pets) would need.
In the draft of their latest wildfire toolkit, the NFCC emphasises the importance of ensuring any plans or checks are inclusive of neurodivergent individuals, and suggest the preparation and/or provision of sensory aids, tailored communication strategies, and other forms of support.
Being aware of the possible causes
Advice and information that is provided to residents should be designed to make them aware of any unintended consequences that can arise from their actions in higher risk areas. This should include:
- Information about the risks of improperly disposing of everyday items, such as matches or glass bottles, in the proximity of the home. These items should be disposed of properly to minimise any risk.
- Not leaving any fires unattended, and – ideally – not setting fires at all during summer months without taking significant precautions.
- Advice against burning waste in their gardens or on open land.
As noted above, you may want to consider the most appropriate way of trying to get this information to your residents, whether that is working with local partners like fire and rescue services, providing information directly, or a mixture of both.
Managing and maintaining their home and garden
As noted previously, managing and maintaining a home is the collective responsibility of the housing provider and the resident. There are some actions that can only be taken, or that should be taken, by the housing provider, set out in Strategic asset management and wildfires. However, there are also actions that residents can take to mitigate the risk of wildfire spread on or around their homes.
When providing advice and information to residents about these actions, it is important to be mindful of the diverse needs and circumstances of different residents. This is true whether you are providing information directly yourself, or working with local partners to support their outreach and information provision work. Some residents will not be able to undertake some of the actions listed below, for different reasons, and some may need to become the responsibility of the housing provider. Understanding who lives in the home, as described in Understanding wildfire data and risk, will help you do to this.
Advice and information about the below actions are important, however they are delivered to residents.
- Supporting residents to understand the importance of the Home Ignition Zone, and actions they can take to maintain it. This should include information about:
- Clearing debris like leaves or grass cuttings from the garden, as well as from decks, patios, eaves, and – where accessible – gutters. This reduces the risk of embers igniting on or near a home.
- Clearing dead vegetation or anything that is stored from under any decking, and within 10 feet of the house.
- Where they can, removing flammable materials like firewood, LPG bottles, or dry leaves from within 30 feet of the home.
- Where they have a garden, keeping the lawn watered and well-maintained as much as they can.
- Making sure there are no obstructions to emergency services, so they can reach the home quickly and easily if they are needed. This can include making driveways accessible.
Focusing on the community
For communities located in areas that are at higher risk of wildfire, community events can be an effective way of supporting residents – not just social housing residents – to be aware of wildfires, and what actions they can take to help mitigate risk. This can support communities to build shared resilience and understanding at a local level, and are best organised in partnership with local partners, like fire and rescue services. You could also support any events that are organised locally by fire and rescue services by sharing information about them with your residents.
Wider community schemes and programmes can also be a way of bringing local residents together to undertake risk assessments, such as in the example of local Firewise Schemes. As a housing provider, you could look to work with local fire and rescue services and other local partners to explore setting up a Firewise allied scheme in areas of higher wildfire risk.
Colleague training
Housing officers and other colleagues who work in the community are a vital source of trusted information for residents. They can also support you with your understanding of wildfire risk by being trained to identify potential ignition risks in communities; for example, if they see piles of dry leaves on property boundaries or near fences during very hot weather.
Consider whether to upskill colleagues working in communities that you know, through undertaking some of the work described in Understanding wildfire data and risk, have a higher wildfire risk. This training could focus on how they can support residents with advice and information during very hot weather, and could be initially targeted at colleagues who work specifically in high-risk areas (e.g. with a patch including parts of a Rural Urban Interface).
Your local fire and rescue service should be able to advise on any suitable training courses colleagues could attend.
Knowing what to do if they see a wildfire, or a risk of one
Information that is provided to residents should inform them what to do if they see a wildfire, or if they see someone doing something that could start a wildfire.
The immediate priority advice and information for residents if they see a fire are:
- Get to safe place.
- Call 999 and ask for the fire service.
- To the greatest extent possible, provide the location and size of the fire, and any other information they are asked for.
- If it is safe to do so, meet the fire and rescue service to provide additional guidance on location.
Other considerations are:
- They should inform you, as their landlord, that there might be a risk to the home from the wildfire.
- If they see activity they think is risky or suspicious, for example deliberate fire setting or people using disposable barbecues during hot weather, they should call the police.
- Keeping windows closed to prevent smoke entering the home and, if possible, staying indoors. This also applies if they are in a vehicle.
- If they feel unsafe or at risk, they should take steps to evacuate or shelter. If they can’t safely evacuate themselves, they should call 999 and request assistance.
Contents insurance
Many people, especially in social housing, do not have a home contents insurance policy. This means that residents can be forced to use savings or take out credit to replace belongings that are lost due to fire. You should consider providing information to residents about how contents insurance can benefit them generally, but also be specific that contents insurance should cover them for any loss or damage caused by wildfires if they live in an area that might be at higher risk.
There are other ways you can support residents to access home contents insurance. For example, the National Housing Federation works in partnership with Thistle Tenant Risks on the My Home Contents Insurance scheme. Housing providers can signpost residents to it, or can administer their own Tenants Home Contents Insurance Scheme.
