What has been happening in Australia over the summer has been devasting and almost unimaginable the extent and area that bushfires have been burning across the country.
We talk about being bushfire prepared all of the time, because we do live in Australia and bushfires are not a new occurrence (maybe not to this extent all at once) but it seems even more important than ever now to talk about this.
We have been receiving calls and emails from our regular customers telling us of their near misses with fires and how being bushfire prepared saved their properties.
In South Australian, one of our Franchisees had a customer who called to say thank you as the fire made it all the way up to the side of the house, burning the brickwork on their garage. Unfortunately the houses on either side of their property were lost to the fire, but this customers house was still standing. The Firefighters said it was because they were bushfire prepared with a well maintained home – with CLEAN gutters – that had only been cleaned a few weeks before in preparation for the summer bushfire season.
This may not be of any comfort to those that have been in the line of fire, homes damaged or even lost. We have had a few of our franchisees evacuated from their own properties during this fire season and our thoughts are with everyone that has been affected, but we feel it is our duty to continue to remind everyone that you need to be bushfire prepared.
All it takes is a single ember to light up some dry debris in your gutters to start a fire. Over this summer there have been reports of embers being 12 kms ahead of the fire front! That’s incredible.
All of the fire services in each state have detailed suggestions for how to get your home and property prepared for bushfires and gutter cleaning is just one item on that list, so take the time…. It could save your home.
Again, we send our thoughts to all those affected and displaced during this bushfire season and continue to do good work locally across the nation to help local affected areas from working with emergency services, donations, food bank drop offs, use of our trucks and some of our franchisees have even been offering accommodation to those displaced. We see if it first hand and we work on the ground locally to help.
