Next Steps

What's Next on Site

Once you have been given the green light to access your home site, you can salvage recoverable possessions and commence the clean-up.

Clean up

The clean up is difficult. The smell of smoke is pervasive. Removing soot, water damage and stains, ash and smoke damage is best left in experienced hands. You may inadvertently cause more damage by doing the work yourself.

Tackle the clean up as soon as you can. A quick clean up will minimise continued damage by soot and smoke, which are corrosive and can stain surfaces permanently.

What you can do

Some changes in the order of dot points will make the sequence of steps more logical. I propose:

1. Make the home secure
2. Ventilate the building to assist with drying out

3. Consult your insurance company to:

   • Confirm it is OK to commence the clean-up

   • What do you need to photograph at this point?

   • Is there a clean-up organisation they can recommend?

   • Can you discard items that cannot be salvaged without jeopardising your claim?

4. Engage a cleaning organisation that your insurance company recommends or one like Capital Restoration Cleaning.
5. Keep all receipts no matter how small
6. Follow the guidelines in the 'Salvage' section below
7. This After The Fire guide will provide you with additional useful advice.

Working with a cleaning organisation

Give the chosen business your insurance details.

Ask the person/organisation doing the cleaning:

• for an assessment of the damage - the most damaged to the least damaged;
• what is damaged: e.g. floors, doors, windows, roofing, walls, contents
• for a plan of what is salvageable and what cannot be repaired/restored;
• what needs demolition to make the house safe
• what needs to be removed from the site and disposed of: who hires the skips
• what the estimated cost will be and if a payment plan can be negotiated
• how long cleaning will take
• for an understanding of what damage may remain after cleaning, e.g. staining, discolouration. You may have to plaster and/or paint.
• for a final report of work done for insurance purposes.

These are the things a cleaning company can do.

1. Remove debris which will help reduce the smell. Check the cleaning company hires the skips.
2. Remove soot from walls, tiles, windows, carpets, upholstery and other surfaces.
3. Deodorising to eliminate smoke odour.
4. Cleaning of salvaged items.

Salvage

Even though you may not be able to live in your home, you may be able to salvage something.

Walk through your property and see what can be salvaged. It is a challenging and emotional task to see your personal and cherished items destroyed or damaged beyond salvage.

To start with:

• Check you have permission to go through your property (Council's Building Inspector, fire brigade, insurance company).
• Check that it is safe to walk through the building (Council's Building Inspector, fire brigade).
• Take frequent breaks. Acknowledge your feelings.
• Ask family and friends to help you. They are not as emotionally tied to your things.
• Know when it is time to walk away and accept the losses. As hard as this may seem at the time, it is a valuable part of moving forward.
• Dust masks and gloves are helpful. Also, keep pen and paper handy to take notes of items you haven't already mentioned to the insurance company or things you need to replace.
• Use your mobile - or borrow one - to take photographs as you go.

Take stock

Make a list of everything you have been able to salvage. A comprehensive list is a helpful document to cross-check items that need repair, can be sold, are eventually discarded and claimed against insurance.

Begining to Build

Plan work to be done

Before you commit to any action, plan - do things in the correct order. It saves time, money and is better for your well-being.

• Will you use an architect?
• Will you use the existing house plan?
  • You can find basic information about your block of land on Services land.vic.gov.au
  • To get a copy of your house plan, if destroyed, can be found through Landata .
• Get two estimates for work to be done. There may be a fee for this service.

Working with builders

Don't just build it back; build it better. Don't rush; take your time. This Consumer Affairs Victoria document applies to building after a disaster. Generally, the advice is relevant across both urban and bush fires.

These are the things you need to look at when choosing a builder:

• Ask for proof of insurance
• Ask for references and check them.
• Ask for a written estimate - check it to make sure it includes everything you expect the contractor to do.
• Ask for a contract - the contract should be complete and clearly state all the work, the costs, and the payment schedule. If the contractor provides guarantees, they should be written into the contract, clearly stating what is guaranteed, who is responsible for the guarantee (the dealer, the contractor, or the manufacturer), and how long the guarantee is valid.
• Obtain a copy of the final signed contract.
• Don't sign off or make the final payment until the work is completed to your satisfaction.
• Communicate: agree to have regular site meetings with the construction supervisor, perhaps once a week. Compliment good work along the way. If there's anything you're unhappy with, communicate this with your construction supervisor so the issue can be resolved quickly.
• Building your dream home can be an emotional process and relies on both sides remaining rational and objective. Have patience; quality work takes time.
• The builder's membership of Master Builders Association or Housing Industry Association (HIA) is a good sign.

If a dispute does arise and an agreement cannot be reached, contact the Victoria Building Authority on 1300 815 127.

What you can expect in the building/repair process

At this point, be aware that if you lost your home in the 2009 Black Saturday fires, some regulations about building in bush fire-prone areas have changed.
You may need to acquaint yourself with new building materials building regulations.

In an urban environment, this will not apply to you.

The building process itself depends on what you are doing - renovating as part of the repair, repairing a selected section of the house or rebuilding altogether.

The following list covers the building of a new house from start to finish. You can use whatever is relevant to your circumstances.

• Grading and site preparation
• Foundation construction
• Framing and roof trusses
• Installation of windows and doors
• Roofing
• Exterior walls
• Electrical
• Plumbing
• Heating, air conditioning
• Insulation
• Plastering
• Flooring underlays
• Trimmings - such as mouldings applied around openings (window trim, door trim) or at the floor and ceiling of rooms (baseboard, cornice, and other mouldings).
• Painting
• Finish electrical
• • Bathroom and kitchen counters and cabinets
• Finish plumbing
• Carpet and flooring
• Finish heating and air conditioning
• Connect utilities
• Connect sewerage or septic tank
• Owner inspection (aka punch list) - work that does not conform to contract specifications that the contractor must complete before final payment. The work may include incomplete or incorrect installations or incidental damage to existing finishes, material and structures.

This list belies the myriad decisions you have to make on the way. Avoid changes; it's expensive and can delay the process.

Legal Advice

Disaster Legal Help Victoria is a joint initiative of Victoria Legal Aid, the Federation of Community Legal Centres, the Law Institute of Victoria, Victoria Law Foundation, the Victorian Bar and Justice Connect.

Call the helpline on 1800 113 432 to speak about legal issues and ongoing support. The helpline is open from 8.00 am to 6.00 pm Monday to Friday.

Emotional Support

Checking in with your GP regularly is still important, especially at this time when you might think that you should be over it.
Different and unexpected emotional reactions to your situation now, may be brought on by continued changes in your circumstances, new challenges, the difficulty and time it is taking to bring things to a close. You may experience only one or two of these reactions and in no particular order, or you may be feeling completely overwhelmed.

• continually re-living the event
• difficulties sleeping and concentrating, feeling irritable and anxious
• deliberately avoiding people, locations or thoughts about the fire because it brings painful memories
• feeling emotionally numb and losing interest in life
• feeling isolated, alone and emotionally flat
• Coping with triggers which lead to reliving the event
• Handling an anniversary of the event
• Coping with 2nd stage grief, depression, post traumatic stress.
• Poor memory (stress related) can’t remember what it was like before the event
• In new goal-setting mode, you lose touch with former goals and plans
• Neglect of self, relationships, family and recreation
• Social and community life is side tracked and community support may be diminishing.
• Disorientated: previous lifestyle gone, attachments lost.

One morning it hit home. Looking at a strange kitchen table and a mixture of odd breakfast things I stood transfixed. I realised that this was who we were. This was who I was. Right up until then, it had been an adventure, almost fun, and a bizarre alternative holiday. We all felt that way. We all expected to go back to who we were and take up our lives from where we left off. Then it hit… we were never going back there, and would certainly never be those people again. I believed that we would never be the free-spirited people we had been. Our innocence, our identity, had somehow been taken away from us.

Positive emotions

Some of you may not experience much disruption in your feelings and emotions at all.

• Survival assured, taking a future view and planning
• Thinking clearer, big picture, longer term, more complex
• Routines more settled
• Stress diminishing
• Numbness wearing off, more emotionally involved.
• Moving towards your comfort zone again

Routines

Routines are how families organise themselves to get things done, spend time together and have fun. To establish new routines in your new circumstances and/or to reinstate past routines helps to lesson anxiety and aid your recovery.

Routines help restore order when your situation is chaotic. It helps bring levels of stress down as people and household organisation returns to recognisable and safe patterns. Routines provide a sense of security, comfort and safety.
In these initial stages of recovery even the basic, everyday routines we take for granted can make a big difference:

• Regular meals, regular times for showers and bath time

• If you haven't already done so resume your medications; maybe add supplements which will help general good health

• Resume any regular activities prior to the fire: such as training, walking, family movie nights, bed time reading with children

Routines help family members understand what’s important, reinforces their shared beliefs and values, and build a sense of belonging and togetherness Everyone knows who does what, when, in what order and how often. Routines can help resolve disputes and make decisions.

Even though you may not feel like routine activities, or feel too overwhelmed to perform these everyday tasks, establishing one routine will make a difference.

If you are having difficulty, enlist the help of a calm and relaxed relative or friend for encouragement and to help you establish simple routines for the children. You will feel much better for it.

You are facing daily challenge and stress. Do not hesitate to get help at any time.

Fatigue

You may feel drained and low in energy as your body continues to work through the effects of trauma.

Extra rest and water intake will help to ease the fatigue as well as a wholesome diet of nutritious foods.

Relationships

Dealing with people's individual responses to trauma and stress can be challenging to deal with, especially if they don't match or reflect yours. Your relationships may have suffered. Relationships are personal but some guidelines are common and can provide a foundation for discussion. Take a look at this video from Dr Rob Gordon on trauma and relationships .

Documents

Depending on the circumstances of your fire, you may have all your documents still available to you. However, in the worst-case scenario, you may have lost all or some of your essential documents; others may be water damaged and need replacement.

To start, you need to replace those documents which provide you with proof of identity, like your birth certificate, driver's licence or Medicare card.

It will take time and patience, but all items can be replaced.

Birth, Death and Marriage Certificates

Proof of identity

Make an appointment with the Registry of  Births, Deaths and Marriages.  (1300 369 367 prepare to wait).

Go in person to the Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages on the ground floor/595 Collins St, Melbourne VIC 3000. Speak to the concierge at the front door, and he will place you in the correct queue.  There will be a wait.

Take these documents with you to start the process:

• A certified photograph/s.  These are passport-style photographs taken of you and your affected family members.  Some pharmacies and post offices will do these photographs.  Have these been signed as a true likeness by an authorised person ?
• A report from the Police and/or the fire incident officer who attended the fire that your home has burnt down/damaged by fire, you cannot return, and your means of identification has been lost.

• A letter from your family doctor that says he has treated you and your family for the last x number of years and you are well known to him at the address where your home was burnt down.

• An Elector's History Details letter. Call the 13 23 26.  Wait until you are asked to provide your postcode.  This will take you through to your local Australian Electoral Office.   Ask for a confirmation of enrolment form to be sent to you. They look up the roll and certify that you live at and are still living at your address.  This becomes your currently recorded address.

With your new birth certificate/s, you will have at least one document to prove your identity and to get started on replacing other vital records.

Children's immunisation certificates

If your child is born before 1996 you can:

• contact your local Maternal & Child Health Center and request copies.
• call 9340 1444
• call 9340 1481 for records of immunisations at secondary school

If your child is born after 1996 contact the Australian Childhood Immunisation Register on 1800 653 809

You can also speak to your GP.

Credit Cards

Contact your credit card provider and report the card lost.   You will usually need your customer number and password to report the card lost and start the application process for a new card.

If you don't have these, go into a branch to report the card lost and apply for a new credit card.  Take whatever proof of identity you have available to you.   If you do not have any identification documents, then a certified photograph and one of the letters will help get the process started:

• A certified photograph/s.  These are passport-style photographs taken of the cardholder.  Some pharmacies and post offices will take these photographs.  Have these signed as a true likeness by an authorised person .

• A report from the Police and/or the fire incident officer who attended the fire that your home has burnt down/damaged by fire, you cannot return, and your means of identification has been lost.

• A letter from your family doctor that says he has treated you and your family for the last x number of years and you are well known to him at the address where your home was burnt down.

Drivers Licence

For a list of VicRoads services and phone numbers you can go here.

You can apply for a replacement by applying

• Online
• By phone
• In person at a VicRoads Customer Service Centre
• By mail

You may need evidence of identity to get a replacement license;

• You can call the Australian Electoral Commission on 13 23 26 and ask for an Elector's History Details letter.
• Wait until you are asked to provide your postcode.  This will take you through to your local Australian Electoral Office.   Ask for a confirmation of enrolment form to be sent to you. They look up the roll and certify that you live at and are still living at your address.  This becomes your currently recorded address.

Other things to look out for/ask about:

• Is your picture stored on the system?
• Your license will show your currently recorded address
• It takes 10 working days to get a new license

Note: You can only pay for a new image with a credit card.

House Certificate of Title

The Victorian Land Registry Services - 9102 0401 - has an "Application for a new Certificate of Title in place of one lost or destroyed 31TLA".   

(Click on the green down arrow to read supporting documents.  Click on Open Form.  If is does not open, click on the yellow tab on the right-hand side. )

Income Tax information

Should you have any taxation issues, it is important that you call the Australian Tax Office (ATO) - 13 28 61 - within the first four to six months after the fire. Have your tax file number (TFN) ready if available.

Explain your extenuating circumstances and any hardships you are facing as a result.  The ATO will be able to help if they can work with you on an ongoing basis until you are back on track.

Medicare Card and your private health care card

If you have used your Medicare card in the last six months, call 13 20 11, and after you have done the security check, they will issue a replacement card.  Or, if your Medicare card is linked to MyGov you can request another card online. Click HERE for online information about replacing your Medicare Card

If you have not used your Medicare card in the last six months you will need to visit your nearest Medicare / Centrelink office.  They will do a full security check with you.

Take as many of these proof-of-identity items as you can with you:

• a letter from the bank,
• a letter from your employer
• a photograph of you which is certified by an authorised person as a true likeness
• a report from the Police and or the fire incident officer who attended the fire, that your home has been burnt down, you cannot return and your means of identification have been lost.
• a letter from your family doctor that says he has treated you and your family for the last x number of years

Mortgage information

Make an appointment with your bank to discuss how to replace important documentation.

Passport

• Contact the Australia Passport Office on 13 12 32.  Prepare to wait.

If you were born in Australia, you would need:

• A completed application form is available from the Post Office
• a birth certificate,
• marriage certificate to cover name change,
• driver's license, and
• other ID e.g. Medicare card, credit card

If you are born overseas, you will need:

• a birth certificate,
• marriage certificate
• parents' details if born after 20 August 1986 (this is to prove that parent was a citizen at the time of the applicant's birth)
• driver's license and
• your citizenship certificate (a copy of which you can get from the Department of Home Affairs or here going online and using Form 1195 at the cost of $190).

Scripts

Replace your prescribed medications.  These are also available from your My Health Record.

Other replacements to consider

• Computer
• Mobiles: Telstra, Vodafone, Optus
• Spectacles: Contact your optician
• Hearing aid: Contact your audio technician
• Any other prosthetic devices or aids
• Wallet
• Toiletry basics: toothbrush, toothpaste, cream, shaving equipment,

food

Don't take chances. If in doubt, throw out.

Clothing

If all Clothing has been ruined by fire, you may have friends and family donate items. You can also visit Savers. If you are inundated with donations. Don't be shy to take only those items you like and can use and bring any remaining items to an op shop.

Household furniture and white goods

As a temporary measure, anything you can get from the welfare organisations or op shops and Savers will see you through the short term.

There are organisations like rent4keeps, which may give you another option to consider.

Valuables

These may consist of jewellery, paintings, ornaments, musical instruments. Make a list of your valuables and discuss any losses with your insurance assessor. For valuables of historical or cultural significance, your first contact may be Australian Institute for the Conservation of Cultural Materials for assessment or your state museum, library or gallery may be able to advise you.

Children and Recovery

There is a section in the Help Pages with more information.

Return to work

You may have already returned to work.  Returning to work may follow different timelines, depending on circumstances.  Returning to work can offer financial support and social support through co-workers and friends and can assist in your recovery process.

Work can act as a distraction and a sense of normality, even achievement when life may feel irregular.

Returning to work after trauma (a deeply distressing or disturbing experience) can have some challenges, including:

• feeling irritable
• being disorganised
• having memory problems and difficulty concentrating
• fatigue and therefore reduced performance

In the initial stages, you may need to return gradually with shortened hours or reduced tasks and even a change in the type of tasks.  Be patient with yourself.   Your usual level of function will return in time and until then, make sure to openly communicate with employers about your transition back to full-time work and study.

There is much information available on return to work guidelines. Also the Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission (1300 292 153)

Accommodation

Your accommodation arrangements may be flexible at this time: you may be renting, in a caravan, staying with family or friends.
If you were allowed to return home, you might be living in your own home but under challenging conditions while you repair the damage.
It will not last forever.
Remember to give yourself and your family your downtime, have a bit of fun.

Insurance

By this time, you should have had a conclusive discussion with your insurance company about which builder you will be using and how payments during the building process will be made. If not, this is an essential step to follow up now.

Once you have decided to repair, renovate or rebuild, there is a path to follow.
Legal help with your insurance claim

If you have not had a resolution from your insurance company, you can escalate your claim to a complaint. Go to this site for legal assistance.

Finance

Visit the bank and discuss your options to start a repair or rebuild:

• Take documents that show proof of identity,
• Take your insurance contract.
• Write down what you and anyone else in your household earn (payslips?);
• What direct debits are in operation;
• what are your debts - credit cards, rent, mortgage, food, clothing, utilities, medical, and transportation costs.
• Car/s?
• Liaise with your insurance company if payment has yet to be made.
• If uninsured, visit the DHHS website Personal Hardship Program 

Replacements

Go through your inventory list of things that need replacing—follow-up on outstanding items.

Council

Check that you have complied with all the requirements Council may have asked you to do about restoring your home.

Snez's Story