South Australia's fire danger season is here. Bushfires pose a threat to lives, property and electrical infrastructure. It's everyone's responsibility to be prepared.

This summer is anticipated to be exceptionally hot and dry, heightening the risk of bushfires throughout the State. Whether you live in the Adelaide Hills, the Fleurieu Peninsula or further afield, bushfires pose a very real threat to lives and property. To minimise the impact on you, we take a number of steps before the bushfire season starts to help keep the network running safely. 

How we prepare for the bushfire season

Throughout the year, we plan ahead to reduce bushfire risk and ensure the safety and reliability of the network for the community. A big investment is made in our network preparation for bushfire season and to reduce the potential for bushfires starting, including: 

• trimming vegetation around powerlines 
• patrolling the network in high bushfire risk areas (aerial and ground patrols to confirm the integrity of equipment).
• replacing and upgrading equipment where needed to meet the summer peak power demand. 
• operating impacted parts of the network to bushfire settings when there is an extreme or catastrophic fire danger rating in a specific bushfire risk area. 
• bushfire risk and management training for all our employees.

We monitor the weather and fire conditions closely and on rare occasions will turn off the power supply to in high-risk bushfire conditions to protect lives and property.  

How you can prepare for the bushfire season

If you live in, or near a bushfire area, we recommend incorporating the potential for a loss of power into your bushfire planning. Even if you're not at an immediate risk, you may be impacted if powerlines supplying your electricity cross a bushfire zone. Where power is lost, we will restore it as soon as it is safe to do so. 

Here are some ways to ready yourself: 

• update your bushfire action plan and include a plan without power (think of things like how you will power water pumps, and even simple things like manually opening an electric garage door) 
• plan escape routes. 
• keep phones, tablets and laptops charged so you can keep informed about fire and power issues. 
• sign up for our SMS outage updates on our website. 
• if you rely on power for medical or life support equipment, it’s vital that you have a backup plan in place in the event of a power outage.  
• keep a battery-powered AM/FM radio and spare batteries on hand. 
• have a torch and spare batteries ready. 

If you lose power in a bushfire situation it may be some time before we can safely restore supply - so keep that in mind when making your plans. 

The CFS website offers many resources including how to make a 5-minute bushfire plan. 

Fire danger season dates 2023/2024 

• Adelaide Metropolitan - 15 November 2023 to 30 April 2024 
• Eastern Eyre Peninsula - 1 November 2023 to 15 April 2024 
• Flinders - 16 October 2023 to 15 April 2024 
• Kangaroo Island - 15 November 2023 to 30 April 2024  
• Lower Eyre Peninsula - 15 November 2023 to 15 April 2024 
• Lower South East - 22 November 2023 to 30 April 2024  
• Mid North - 1 November 2023 to 30 April 2024 
• Mount Lofty Ranges - 15 November 2023 to 30 April 2024  
• Murraylands - 1 November 2023 to 15 April 2024  
• North East Pastoral - 16 October 2023 to 31 March 2024 
• North West Pastoral - 16 October 2023 to 31 March 2024 
• Riverland - 1 November 2023 to 15 April 2024 
• Upper South East -15 November 2023 to 15 April 2024 
• West Coast - 16 October 2023 to 15 March 2024 
• Yorke Peninsula - 1 November 2023 - 30 April 2024 

More on bushfire safety

Read more information on our bushfire safety page.