Bushfire Go-Bag: Exactly What to Pack
A go-bag is not a shopping list. It is a sequence.
The reason most published checklists fail is that they present forty items as equally important, with no order and no weight, so people either buy nothing or assemble a bag so heavy and unwieldy that it lives in a cupboard and never gets into the car. Then on the day, they pack in a hurry, forget the medication and the document folder, and take three trips to the boot they did not have time for.
So this list is organised by the only thing that matters on the day: the hour you would need each item. A five-minute grab, a thirty-minute pack, and the pre-season load that should already be in the car before fire season starts.
One note before the list. The bag is the second half of the plan. The first half is deciding when you go, which is covered in Leave or Stay? — and at a Catastrophic fire danger rating the official advice is to leave bushfire risk areas, going the night before or early that morning. A perfect go-bag does not fix a late departure.
The 10-minute version
- Two bags, not one. A small grab bag that lives by the door with documents, medication, chargers and cash — and a larger box or duffel that lives in the car boot through the season with water, clothing and PPE.
- Natural fibres only. Long sleeves and long trousers in cotton, wool or denim, plus sturdy leather boots and leather gloves. Synthetics melt onto skin under radiant heat, and that is the difference between a burn and a much worse burn.
- Pack it in October and leave it packed. A bag you assemble on the day is a bag missing three things.
The five-minute grab
If you have five minutes, you take these and you leave. Keep them together, in one bag, all season.
- Wallet, phone, keys — and a power bank with cable
- Medication — a week of everything, in its original packaging, plus a written list of drugs and doses
- Document folder or USB — licence, passports, insurance policy numbers and the 24-hour claims line, prescriptions, birth certificates, title or lease. Scans in cloud storage as backup
- Cash — $200 in small notes. EFTPOS and ATMs fail with the power
- Glasses, hearing aids, mobility aids — anything a person cannot function without
- A litre of water each
- Pets — carriers by the door, leads on hooks, and food. Details in Evacuating With Pets
- The irreplaceables — one small box. Photographs, the hard drive, the jewellery, the letters. Decide what goes in it now, calmly, rather than standing in a hallway with smoke outside
That is the whole five-minute list. If you own nothing else on this page, own that.
The thirty-minute pack
With more warning, add these. They should be pre-packed in the car for the season.
Protective clothing — one set per person. This is the part people skimp on and it is the part that protects your body:
- Long-sleeved shirt and long trousers in cotton, wool or denim. Not polyester, not nylon, not activewear
- Sturdy leather boots with thick socks. Not thongs, not sneakers, not synthetic hiking shoes
- Leather work gloves
- Wide-brimmed hat
- Goggles — safety glasses at minimum. Embers and smoke ruin vision fast
- P2 mask per person, and a spare. Also the right mask for cleanup afterwards
- A woollen blanket per person. Wool chars; synthetic fleece melts. This is the item that protects you from radiant heat if you are caught
Water. Three litres per person per day, three days if you can carry it. For a family of four that is 36 litres — heavy, so keep the bulk in the car and a smaller bottle in the grab bag.
Food. Three days of no-cook food: tinned protein, muesli bars, nuts, dried fruit, crackers, long-life milk. A manual can opener, because yours is probably electric.
First aid kit, including burn dressings and plenty of saline.
Torch — a headlamp — plus spare batteries in a single standard size across all your devices.
Battery or wind-up radio. ABC Local Radio is the emergency broadcaster, and this is the one item with no substitute when the network drops.
Toiletries, towel, toilet paper, nappies, formula, sanitary items — whatever your household cannot improvise.
Phone charger for the car, plus the power bank.
A printed contact list and your written plan. Paper. Your phone will be flat or lost.
The pre-season load
Done once, in early October, then left alone.
- Fuel at half a tank or more, all season. Petrol stations need power to pump, and a fire that takes out your suburb takes out the servo
- Park facing out, on the far side of the house from the bush if there is one
- Two printed maps of the region with your primary and secondary exit routes marked. GPS fails when the network does, and roads close
- A jerry can of fuel, stored correctly and never inside the car cabin
- Sturdy shoes and a torch in each vehicle
- Water containers in the boot, dated and rotated at the start of each season
- The go-bag itself — packed, weighed, and in the boot
What to leave out
Just as important, and rarely mentioned.
- Aerosols and gas cylinders in the cabin. Heat plus pressurised containers is a bad combination in a hot car
- Synthetic clothing as your protective layer. It melts
- Anything you can buy in an hour. Toothpaste is not worth the space or the weight
- A bag so heavy nobody can carry it. Target 8 to 10 kg for a person’s grab bag; put the water and bulk in the car
- Everything of sentimental value. One small box, decided in advance. Trying to save it all is how people end up leaving too late — which is the actual danger
Thresholds: when the bag moves
Tie the bag to Australia’s fire danger ratings, so the decision is already made:
| Rating | What happens to the bag |
|---|---|
| Moderate / High | Bag packed and accessible. Car above half a tank |
| Extreme | Bag in the car. Documents and irreplaceables loaded. Plan is live — if your plan is to leave, go now |
| Catastrophic | You should not be there. Leave the night before or early that morning |
Also worth knowing: have the bag in the car before you go to bed on any day where tomorrow’s forecast is Extreme or worse. Fires that start overnight or early morning give the least warning, and nobody packs well at 4am.
What actually goes wrong
The bag is not in the car. It is in the hallway cupboard, behind the Christmas decorations, and the household leaves without it.
Medication is in the bathroom cabinet, not the bag, and nobody thinks of it. This is the most common serious omission and it plays out over the following week.
The clothing is synthetic. Activewear is the default modern wardrobe and it is the wrong material for radiant heat.
Nobody has shoes. Evacuations happen at night, people leave in thongs, and then they are standing on hot ground or broken glass.
Documents exist only on a laptop that is inside the house you just left.
The phone is the only torch, radio, map and payment method, and it is at 20%.
Too many trips to the car. Everything should be in one movement. Deciding what matters at the moment of leaving is what converts a safe departure into a late one.
Nobody else knows the plan. The bag is in one person’s head, and that person is at work.
What it costs
Indicative prices, August 2026 — check current pricing, but the tiers hold.
| Tier | Spend | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | Documents scanned to the cloud; a written plan with triggers; the irreplaceables box chosen in advance; existing cotton clothes and boots set aside in a bag; water bottles filled; car kept above half a tank |
| Solid | ~$120–180 | P2 masks ($15), two 10–15 cm elasticised bandages ($20), headlamp ($20), battery radio ($20), power bank ($30), leather gloves ($15), basic first aid kit ($25), $200 cash set aside, 20 L of bottled water ($10) |
| Comfortable | ~$350–500 | The above plus wool blankets ($40 each), goggles ($15), proper first aid kit with burn dressings ($90), 40 L water container ($40), a duffel that lives in the boot ($50), spare leather boots ($80), a printed regional map ($15) |
Wool blankets and leather boots are the two items worth spending real money on, because both are protective equipment rather than convenience.
The drill: the ten-minute test
Do this once, in October, with everyone home.
- Set a timer for ten minutes and announce it as a real evacuation.
- Everyone gets themselves and their bag into the car. Shoes on, long sleeves on, pets in carriers.
- Stop the timer when the car could actually leave. Not when you have thought about leaving.
- Write down what got forgotten. There is always something — always. Medication, the pet food, the charger, one child’s shoes.
- Weigh each bag. Anything over about 10 kg gets thinned or moved to the boot.
- Drive your secondary exit route, the one you would use if the main road is closed. Most households have never driven theirs and discover it is a dead end, a locked gate, or a single-lane track through the exact bush that is on fire.
- Fix the forgotten list this weekend, then put the bag in the boot and leave it there for the season.
That last step — driving the second route — is the highest-value twenty minutes in this entire article, and almost nobody does it.
Frequently asked questions
What should I wear to evacuate a bushfire?
Long sleeves and long trousers in cotton, wool or denim, sturdy leather boots with thick socks, leather gloves, a wide-brimmed hat, goggles and a P2 mask. Avoid synthetics entirely — they melt under radiant heat.
How much water should be in a bushfire go-bag?
Three litres per person per day, aiming at three days. Keep a bottle each in the grab bag and the bulk in the car — 36 litres for a family of four is too heavy to carry.
When should I actually put the bag in the car?
Whenever the rating for the next day is Extreme or worse, and any day the forecast is Catastrophic — in which case you should be leaving rather than loading. Overnight and early-morning fires give the least warning.
What documents do I need?
Licence, passports, insurance policies with the claims number, prescriptions and a medication list, birth certificates, title or lease. Keep scans in cloud storage and a copy on a USB in the bag, plus photos and a video walk-through of the house for insurance.
Is one bag enough, or do I need one each?
One grab bag per household for shared items — documents, cash, radio — plus a personal bag each with clothing, medication and water. Keep individual bags under about 10 kg so anyone can carry their own, including children.
What about the pets?
Carriers by the door, leads on hooks, food and a photo of each animal in case they are separated from you. Boarding options fill fast in an emergency, so the plan needs to be made in advance — full detail in Evacuating With Pets.
I rent. Is there any point preparing?
Yes — the bag is entirely yours, and it is most of the value. You cannot clear gutters or install shutters, but documents, medication, clothing, water and an early departure are all within your control. See Bushfire Plan for Renters and Apartments.