A meeting at Bright yesterday heard of town protection plans, details of new fire warnings and measures accommodation houses and other tourist-related businesses could take to protect their interests.

Among the warnings was that on catastrophic fire days people should avoid high risk fire zones.

It was suggested visiting tourists be told to leave the night before.

Helle Borup from Bogong Village, midway between Falls Creek and Mount Beauty, said their policy was to evacuate on extreme fire days.

They have seen fires in 2003 and 2006.

“We follow the 30/30/30 rule: if it’s more than 30 degrees, 30kmh winds and a fire within 30km it’s time to go,” she said

“We will cancel any booking we have on a Code Red day.”

David Brown from View Hill Holiday units at Bright says he’s refunded money in the past and would do so again during extreme fire days.

“We’ve done it before and the decision was simple — one year you couldn’t see across the road for smoke and it stayed like that for months,” he said.

“You are not doing your business or Bright any favours by having tourists around at that time.”

Karnu Cottages’ Bev Schwarz believes the Black Saturday fires will affect business but believes the best option is to send people home.

“If we have a string of hot days people are going to be nervous about coming here,” she said.

“But the message is clear, if it is Code Red the following day we have to send them away.”

Chairwoman of North East Victoria Tourism Helen Moran said bushfires were a fact of life in the region and the best approach was to be as prepared as possible.

“Businesses need to show they know what the fire warnings mean and that they have plans in place — no one is going to say fires don’t happen but we can show we are well prepared for any emergency and that makes meetings like this essential,” she said.

“The level of interest here today shows that people want to know what they can do to be better prepared.

“People are slowly becoming aware .. that there is always more you can do.

“On Code Red days I would expect most businesses in high risk fire areas will evacuate — no one wants a disaster like February 7.”