How you can help prevent bushfires spreading from 'buffer zones' to ACT suburbs

The couple manages the Canberra Equestrian Centre, a 600-acre rural property bordering on the southside suburb of Chapman, that suffered serious losses in previous bushfires.

When bushfires tore through the centre in 2003, there were about 85 civilians on the property, including people rushing to rescue their horses and others who drove up to take photos of the blaze.

Kim Adams said poor awareness led to people endangering themselves, being burnt, and a number of horses dying in the months after the fires.

"We had horse losses, substantial injuries," she said.

"It wasn't because people were deliberately being silly. It's just they had no idea."

She said their preparedness would help prevent fires from spreading to the suburbs.

"[Chapman] is just over that hill," Ms Adams said, pointing a few hundred metres in front of their office.

"If they're evacuating Chapman, it's too late for us to relocate horses because, for the average person, they're probably looking around 40 minutes to an hour to get out to property, to hook up the float, to load up the horse and get out."

The Adams, who began managing the equestrian centre after the devastating fires, said they worked very closely with the ACT Rural Fire Service (ACTRFS) when it came to fire preparedness and part of its Farm Firewise program.

They said this helped them promptly communicate risks and advance warnings to clients and the public.

RFS rural risk management officer Billy Brooks said rural landholders and farmers were "the buffer zone" for Canberra as they were the first to be hit when campaign fires approached from the north and west.

"This is the very last place before [a fire] hits Canberra. These guys, [it's] very important what they do out here with regards to the protection in the Canberra community," Mr Brooks said.

With more than 180 rural properties in the ACT, Mr Brooks said he spent most of the year visiting different property holders and managers to develop maps that served as a guide during bushfire emergencies.

He said this partnership provided important information about boundary conditions, water sources, entry and exit points, suitable roads for fire trucks, and important assets.

For example, Mr Brooks said homes on the property were much lower on the list of priority areas that needed protection during a fire - compared with the stables and their indoor arena which housed machinery and was also their emergency rally point.

"Usually the houses are insured and insurable [but] machinery sheds are often really difficult to insure, [if] you've inherited granddad's old combine harvester, for instance, to replace it, it would cost $2 million," Mr Brooks said.

Having an updated fire safety plan and open lines of communication played a massive role in protecting people, animals, assets and firefighters, he said.

"It's all about doing as much as you can to stop fire from coming in, but also from leaving," Mr Brooks said.

Properties like the Canberra Equestrian Centre also deal with serious biosecurity risks such as dirt-covered vehicles visiting the property potentially bringing seedlings of invasive, and highly-flammable weeds like lovegrass.

A fire danger rating (catastrophic, high, moderate or low) informs the community how fast a fire is likely to spread, not the likelihood of ignition.

Pulling at a dry stem of grass on the property, fire behaviour and burn planning officer at the ACTRFS, Deborah Stanley, demonstrated how a fire could spread through the area "really, really quickly".

"This kind of grass would be probably 90 per cent cured [dead] and that means it's flammable," Ms Stanley said.

"You can also feel the soil is completely dry and this particular grass has really high seed heads. So if this was on fire, the flame height would likely be about double the height of this seed head [almost five feet]."

She said a fire would move fast even with shorter, grazed grass.

Her job involves monitoring grass conditions across six sites, along with humidity, temperature and most importantly windspeed, which helps determine fire danger ratings in the ACT.