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Guides · Safety planning

A household emergency plan for fires, floods and blackouts

About 5 minutes to read · Last reviewed 4 October 2026

House fires, floods, severe storms, bushfires and long blackouts share one awkward feature: they tend to happen when the household is split up — someone at work, someone at school, someone asleep. The plan that matters most is not the equipment in the cupboard but the answers to three questions everyone in the house can repeat: How do we get out? Where do we meet? Who do we tell?

This guide walks through a household plan you can put together in an evening. Start with the parts that apply everywhere, then add the hazards that apply where you live.

1. Get out: two ways from every room

For a house fire, the time to get out is measured in minutes, sometimes less. Walk through the house and, for each room — especially bedrooms — agree two ways out: usually the door and a window. Check the windows actually open, that security screens can be unlocked from inside without hunting for a key, and that small children know how.

2. Two meeting points

Agree two places to meet, and say them out loud until everyone knows them:

3. One contact outside the area

In a local emergency, phone lines and mobile towers in the affected area get congested, and everyone in the family may be trying to reach everyone else at once. Choose one relative or friend who lives somewhere else as the household's "message centre". Everyone tells that person they're safe and where they are, and everyone checks with that person for news. Write the number down on paper; few people remember phone numbers any more, and a flat phone takes its contacts list with it.

Short text messages often get through when calls fail, and use less battery. Keep updates brief: safe, at Nan's, all three of us.

4. Know how you'll hear about it

Official warnings are the backbone of any plan for floods, storms and bushfires. Find your state or local emergency service's warnings app or website and install it on every adult's phone, set to your home, work and school locations. A battery-powered or wind-up radio is the fallback when power and mobile coverage fail. If you live in a bushfire-prone area, your fire service publishes a bushfire survival plan template — use it, and decide in advance at what warning level you will leave. Leaving early is the safest option, and deciding that at the kitchen table is far easier than on a smoky afternoon.

5. A grab bag, not a bunker

Pack one bag per household that someone can pick up in under a minute. Keep it by the door or in the car, and check it twice a year (daylight-saving changes are a useful reminder):

6. Blackouts

A long power cut is the emergency most households will actually experience. The plan is simple but worth making:

7. People who need extra help

Think through each person who can't simply walk out the front door: a toddler, someone with limited mobility, an older relative who lives nearby, a neighbour who lives alone. Who goes to them? Write that name down. In an evacuation, the people most often left behind are the ones everyone assumed somebody else was collecting.

8. Write it on one page

Put the plan on a single page: exits, both meeting points, the outside contact's number, who collects whom, where the grab bag is, and the warnings app to check. Stick it inside a kitchen cupboard door and give children a copy for their school bag. Then review it once a year — people change jobs, schools and phone numbers.

How Zone Tick fits

Zone Tick is a supplementary safety tool, not a warning system or an emergency service — always follow official warnings. Where it helps is the "who's where and are they safe?" part:

Practise the check-in once during your drill, so that on the day, pressing it is a habit rather than something to work out.

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This guide is general information. Zone Tick is a supplementary safety tool, not an emergency service: in an emergency, call your local emergency number.