Planning Excursions During High Bushfire Risk Periods

Is Your School Trip Fire Ready?

In many regions, the bushfire season acts as a hard gate on outdoor education. It can dramatically affect where and when school excursions can be conducted reliably.

The challenge with fire risk is its volatility. Risk levels can change daily even hourly based on wind and temperature. Without robust preparation, you may face last-minute cancellations, or worse, find yourself in dangerous conditions with a group of students.

I’ve led programs where planned bushwalks had to be re-routed to lower-risk zones at short notice due to spiking fire danger ratings. If we hadn't planned for that possibility in our risk assessment, the trip would have been cancelled, or we would have been operating negligently.

Defensible Planning for Fire Season

Bushfire-aware planning is essential to maintain duty of care and avoid exposing students to preventable hazards. It requires a dynamic approach:

Daily Monitoring: You cannot rely on a forecast from last week. You must monitor official fire danger ratings and weather forecasts daily. This data should be logged in your school excursion software to provide an audit trail of your decision-making.

Evacuation Planning: A generic "move to oval" plan is insufficient. Your risk assessment must include specific evacuation routes and secure refuge points for every location you visit.

Alternate Itineraries: Always have a "Plan B" itinerary for high-risk days. If the rating hits "Extreme" or "Catastrophic," where do you go? Having a pre-approved indoor activity or urban location ready to go ensures the program continues securely.

Response Training: Don't rely on a manual. Train trip leaders in specific bushfire response protocols so they can lead with confidence and authority if an alert is issued.