IT’S usually around this time of year, as another dry, blustery summer draws closer, that Ric Hingee feels a “familiar sense of dread”.

The retired government officer and his family lost their Duffy home in Canberra’s devastating 2003 bushfires, which killed four people and ravaged more than 500 homes.

Ric says what hit hardest in the aftermath, apart from the destruction of his beloved home, was having to “start from scratch” after losing vital personal documentation and treasured family heirlooms.

“There were wills, bank account details, birth certificates, photo albums, artwork, passports, passwords and investment records – we lost all that, and this is what we had left from the supposedly fireproof safe,” he says, clutching a box of fragile, ash-blackened papers.

“The heat was just too intense, and many things in the safe melted… coin collections, bronze statues. Pearl necklaces turned to dust as soon as you touched them. That’s the thing that knocked me about. It took years to pick up the pieces and get back things like our passports, as there were so many hoops to jump through.”

Ric says new personal archival systems such as “MyEssentials”, developed after the 2009 Victorian bushfires, would help disaster survivors avoid the costly expense and stress of losing important documents and personal items.

Created by Melbourne-based barrister Jeff Loewenstein, the kit is legally designed to collect and protect everything important needed in an emergency, and has two formats – an archival storage box version and a digital version – with both versions to be kept in the care of a trusted nominated person or to be stored safely at home or in the office of a lawyer, financial planner or accountant.

Loewenstein says losing personal documents can quickly turn into an “expensive legal nightmare.”

“All too sadly many people were caught with literally no documents or access to important details relating to themselves post the recent severe bushfires in Victoria and the floods in Queensland,” he says.

“Being prepared doesn’t only involve clearing gutters and the like… It also means having collected and put in a secure place, perhaps not even in one’s home, all important documents and having recorded critically vital information related to oneself – like insurance policy numbers, credit card and banking details.”

Ric, who has re-built a fire-resistant home, says he would urge regions at high risk of bushfires to think about “backing up”.

“If we had a kit like this during the fires, it would have made it much easier to cope afterwards,” he says.

“Now we keep copies of our documents at other people’s houses, in email folders and the iCloud, and when there is a high fire danger day, we have the important documents, like our latest tax records and passports, in a ‘ready to go’ box.

“It’s frightening, because we’ve had hot days that were very much like the 2003 fires. Sometimes on those days I go on my motorbike around the suburb and I see people who lost their homes in the fire out there watering the roof and moving their cars to face the roads for a quick getaway. Then you see the people who weren’t affected by the fires inside watching TV. We’ve just got that fear instilled in us.”

For more information on MyEssentials visit myessentials.me/