"Last year I started reading about Australians who installed fire shelters on their property. The idea being that if all else fails you can hunker down in a fireproof bunker that is located in a spot well away from anything that will burn."

That is a suggestion that Aussie permaculturist Bill Mollison has long advised for people living on remote homesteads.

It seems to me that the original partly-underground domed Nader Khalili-designed (CalEarth) emergency shelter, built with nothing more than a string and a stick, a shovel, a batch of sandbags and a roll of barbed wire, and then covered with a thick layer of soil would be an excellent shelter.

Most of the designs you see online now use a continuous sandbag and imported sand/soil, which IMO is inferior to the original design where the soil to fill the sandbags was dug out of the circle, reducing the above-ground profile and taking advantage of the cooler temps a couple of feet below the surface.

Mollison did warn, however, that the wooden door would need a mud, brick or concrete dogleg wall in front of it to protect it from the radiant heat.

I am dying to build one of these things. All I need is a roll of barbed wire, some sandbags, and a couple of hunks to do the work. I've got the shovel, stick and string.

Sue