Leave or Stay? The Bushfire Decision, Made Early

Survival Guru·June 19, 2026·Updated September 5, 2026

A car parked facing outward on a rural driveway at dawn with an open gate and eucalypt treeline

There are two survivable bushfire plans. Leave early, before there is a fire. Or stay and defend a house that has genuinely been prepared to be defended, if you are physically and mentally able to do it.

The third option — waiting to see, then leaving when the fire is close — is the one that kills people. And it is by far the most common, because it is not a plan anyone chooses. It is what happens when no decision was made in advance.

On Black Saturday in 2009, 173 people died. When the fatalities were mapped, 113 died inside houses, 27 outside, and 16 in or near cars. Earlier fires had killed mostly people outdoors, defending property or fleeing late. The shift told investigators something uncomfortable: people were sheltering in houses that had never been prepared for sheltering.

The Royal Commission’s conclusion is worth reading carefully, because it is more nuanced than the slogan: leaving early, before there are fires, is the safest option; staying to defend a well-prepared, defendable home is a sound choice in less severe fires for those who are mentally and physically able. The failure was not that people chose wrong between two valid options. Most had chosen neither, and the choice expired while they waited.

The 10-minute version

Decide now, in writing, and tie it to the fire danger rating. A decision made in advance is available to you when your judgement is degraded — and it will be.
At Catastrophic, leave. The official advice is to leave bushfire risk areas, going the night before or early in the morning. Well-prepared homes are not a reliable defence at that rating.
“Stay and defend” is a specification, not an attitude. Water independent of mains power, pumps, hoses that reach every side, protective clothing, physical fitness, and someone who will not lose their nerve. Without all of it, your plan is to leave.

The trigger table

Print this. Put it on the fridge in October. The rating does the deciding, not the version of you standing on the verandah watching smoke.

Fire danger rating	Official meaning	Your pre-committed action
Moderate	Plan and prepare	Normal life. Know where the plan is
High	Prepare to act	Go-bag accessible, car above half a tank, phone charged, plan reread
Extreme	Take action now to protect life and property	Bag in the car, documents and irreplaceables loaded, pets accounted for. If your plan is to leave, leave now
Catastrophic	For your survival, leave bushfire risk areas	Leave the night before or early that morning. No reassessment on the day

Two additions that matter as much as the table:

A time trigger, not just a rating trigger. “We leave by 8am on any Extreme day” beats “we leave when it looks bad”, because at 2pm on a bad day the roads are already the problem.

A trigger you cannot argue with. Watching for smoke is not a trigger — it is a reason to start arguing about whether that smoke counts. The rating is published, external, and not subject to negotiation with yourself.

What “stay and defend” actually requires

Most people who intend to stay have not met this specification. Read it honestly.

Water and pumps. Enough water independent of mains supply — a tank, a pool, a dam — and a pump that does not need grid power, because the power goes early. Petrol pump, with fuel, tested this season.

Hoses that reach every side of the house. All of them, tested at full length, with fittings that do not leak.

Protective clothing for everyone staying. Long sleeves and trousers in cotton, wool or denim, leather boots, leather gloves, goggles, P2 masks, wool blankets. Synthetics melt.

A prepared house. Gutters cleared, gaps sealed, screens fitted, flammable material moved away from the walls, nothing stored under the deck. Details in How to Survive an Ember Attack.

Physical capacity. Defending a house is hours of hard physical work in extreme heat and smoke, often in the dark, often after the fire front has passed. This is where age, fitness, pregnancy, asthma and mobility genuinely decide the answer.

Everyone agrees. A household split between staying and leaving is the worst configuration available — it produces a late, panicked, partial evacuation.

A fallback. If defence fails, where do you go, and at what point do you decide that? A room to shelter in, a cleared area, a neighbour’s place. Decided in advance.

If any line above is missing, the honest plan is to leave early. That is not a failure. It is the plan the Royal Commission called the safest option.

Why late evacuation is the worst of the three

Leaving late means driving in the conditions that make driving lethal: smoke reducing visibility to metres, embers and burning debris across the road, other people doing the same thing at the same time, fallen trees, closed roads, and a fire front that moves faster than most people expect.

It also means arriving at the decision with no time to think, having already used your reserve of calm on the deciding.

Which is the whole argument for the trigger table. You are not deciding whether to leave. You decided that in October. On the day you are just reading the rating and executing.

What actually goes wrong

No decision was ever made. The most common failure, and the one everything else follows from.

The decision was made but not written down, so it gets renegotiated on the day by people who are frightened.

Different household members have different plans, discovered at the worst possible moment.

Staying is chosen for the house, not for survival. Property is insurable; the person defending it is not.

Waiting for an official warning that never comes. Warnings are best-effort and can be outrun by the fire. The rating is available days ahead.

Assuming you will get a phone alert. Networks fail, towers lose power, and you may be asleep.

The car is low on fuel, parked nose-in, behind a gate that needs power to open.

Pets have no plan, so someone goes back. See Evacuating With Pets.

Nobody drove the second route. The main road out is the one most likely to be cut, and the alternative is often a single-lane track through the exact bush that is burning.

Where to go, and when

Leaving early means leaving before there is a fire — not before the fire reaches you. On a Catastrophic day that means the night before or first thing in the morning, whether or not anything has started.

Where: a friend or relative outside the risk area, a town on the coast or in the city, anywhere with sealed roads and no bush. A designated Neighbourhood Safer Place is a last resort, not a plan — it is a place of relative safety when everything else has failed, not somewhere to spend a comfortable day.

Take: the go-bag, documents, medication, pets, and the one box of irreplaceables you decided on in October.

Tell someone where you are going, and let them know when you arrive.

For the people the decision is hardest for

If you are elderly, unwell, pregnant, disabled, or caring for young children: your plan is to leave early, and to leave earlier than everyone else. The physical demands of defending, and the risks of a late departure, both fall hardest on you.

If you have no car: solve this in October, not in February. Who is collecting you, at what trigger, and what is their backup? Write the name and number on the plan.

If you live alone: arrange a phone buddy who checks in on High and above days, and who knows your plan.

What it costs

Tier	Spend	What it buys
Free	$0, one hour	The written trigger table on the fridge, the household conversation, the second route driven, documents scanned, the irreplaceables box decided
Leaving early	~$120–200	The go-bag: P2 masks, headlamp, radio, power bank, first aid, water, cotton clothing and leather boots you already own
Staying to defend	$2,000–10,000+	Independent water, a petrol pump, hoses to every side, ember screens, gutter protection, full PPE for everyone staying. If this number is a surprise, your plan is to leave

That contrast is the most useful thing on this page. Leaving early is nearly free. Defending is a serious capital investment plus physical capacity, and half of it is worse than none.

The drill: the October hour

Fifteen minutes. Look up your address on your state fire service’s site. Establish the actual risk, not the assumed one.
Fifteen minutes. Household conversation. Leave or defend. Everyone says it out loud. If there is disagreement, the answer is leave.
Ten minutes. Write the trigger table with your own time triggers. Fridge door.
Ten minutes. Write the destination, the route, and the alternative route. Note who you tell.
Twenty minutes. Drive the alternative route. This is the step everyone skips and the one that most often reveals a dead end.
Five minutes. Set a phone reminder for the same weekend next year.

Frequently asked questions

Is it safer to leave or to stay and defend?

Leaving early, before there is a fire, is the safest option. Staying to defend can be sound in less severe fires if the house is genuinely prepared and defendable and you are physically and mentally able — that was the Royal Commission’s own finding. Late evacuation is the most dangerous of the three.

What should I do on a Catastrophic fire danger day?

Leave bushfire risk areas, going the night before or early that morning. At that rating, well-prepared homes are not a reliable defence and the advice is not to reassess on the day.

What does a house need before staying is realistic?

Water independent of mains power, a fuel-driven pump, hoses reaching every side, cleared gutters and sealed gaps, full protective clothing for everyone staying, physical fitness for hours of hard work in heat and smoke, household agreement, and a fallback if defence fails.

When is “early” early enough?

Before there is a fire — not before it reaches you. On Extreme and Catastrophic days that means a set time in the morning, decided in advance, regardless of what you can see.

What if I have no car?

Arrange it in October: who collects you, at which trigger, and their backup. Write the name and number on the plan and confirm it at the start of each season.

Are Neighbourhood Safer Places a plan?

No. They are a last resort — a place of relative safety when everything else has failed. A plan means being somewhere out of the risk area before the day gets dangerous.

This article is general information, researched from the sources listed below and not reviewed by a professional in the relevant field. Check the sources, and get advice or training suited to your situation. Read our full disclaimer.