In light of recent events, the Australian Standard for construction of buildings in bushfire prone areas has been updated, with an emphasis on ventilation openings.
Australia’s worst-ever natural disaster, the Black Saturday Bushfires, swept across parts of Victoria devastating communities with the tragic loss of life and millions of dollars in property damage.
Now, the state is undergoing the largest rebuilding program in its history.
In response to this rebuilding program, Australian Standards has recently updated and re-issued the standard AS3959: Construction of buildings in bushfire prone areas. This revised document contains six Bushfire Attack Levels (BAL), which determine the type of construction required for each building.
Hot burning embers entering buildings through openings in building structures such as roof ventilators have the potential to cause catastrophic damage.
The Fantech Bushfire Compliant range of roof and wall mounted fans meet the requirements set out in 5 of the 6 BAL levels. These levels include BAL-LOW, BAL-12.5, BAL-19, BAL-29 and BAL-40. The range includes the Bushfire code versions of the:
