About

The Little Beauty bushfire shelter is an underground, self-contained environment which protects human life from the effects of bushfire.  It is a personal refuge center, located only meters from the family home.  At a moments’ notice, day or night, as the flames may sweep across and destroy the lands around you, you can be inside, cool, calm and safe until the fire passes.  Upon emerging from the shelter and seeing the destruction that remains, you’ll look back and see your shaken but unharmed family step out from the shelter at which point you may understand how the shelter got it’s name.

“You little beauty!”

Designed after the horrific Ash Wednesday fires of 1983, the Little Beauty’s creator, Ray Toyne, sought to bring the shelter to market and stop such a tragedy happenning again.  Writing to local, state and federal MPs and country fire officials for help and support in bringing his valuable venture to life, Ray was constantly amazed by the lack of interest and even hostility toward his shelter.

Despite testing and proving the shelter’s ability to save lives on two separate occasions, the authorities largely turned their noses up and continued to offer dangerous advice to the public, such as “stay inside your homes”, “fill the bathtub with water” and such.  Since the shelter’s invention, hundreds have lost their lives due to lack of safe shelter, lives which the shelter was designed to save.

Now, with the latest series of fires raging across southern Australia, there has never been a greater need for the Little Beauty.

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