UPDATED: The loss of homes for thousands of people is causing enormous stress and for some will continue to do so for months, if not years. Some people though are already looking for answers as searches for fire-resistant houses on our website has revealed in recent weeks. One answer might be prefabrication, which can be built to the highest Bushfire Attack Level rating, and offer quick construction times. Some members are also offering probono services to help.

Prefabricated homes, which are manufactured fully or partly in a factory and assembled onsite, are much faster to build than conventional homes, making them an option for the thousands of people seeking to rebuild after the fires.

After the California wildfires in 2018, home owners turned to the prefab industry to help though the rebuild activity tended to be more concentrated in areas where home owners were insured and had access to quicker payouts.

Less wealthy areas showed significantly lower levels of rebuild as this highly researched article from Four Twenty Seven showed last week, pointing to the need to fast-track help for members of the community who are most vulnerable.

• Wealthy will likely rebuild faster after fires than other communities, if California is any guide

Director of prefab company ARKit, Craig Chatman, says it’s still too early for most people to be thinking about rebuilding but is expecting calls in 12 months or so once sites have been cleaned up and cleared for contaminates.

Chatman says prefab has a key role to play in rebuilding efforts post-bushfires as it “keeps costs down and quality up.” There’s also the advantage of avoiding the “chaos” of traditional construction methods on a “pretty sensitive” bushfire site.

It can also be cheaper, depending on how bespoke customers want to go. Chatman says modular construction can be below market rates if customers opt for something off-the-shelf, but the greater the customisation, the more customers can expect to pay.

But at the higher levels of customisation, prefab can be as expensive as traditional building methods.

Prefab operators signed up to pro bono fire-assistance program

The company has signed up to Architects Assist, which is an initiative from the Australian Institute of Architects that architects can sign up to if they wish to offer pro bono design services to people affected by the fires.

The company is offering a catalogue of standardised offerings as part of its bushfire recovery program and hopes to offer a completely free design and documentation solution for people affected by bushfires once it gets its consultants and other subcontractors on board.

Victorian-based offsite construction company Archiblox has also signed up to Architects Assist.

Prefab is good for hard-to-reach spots

According to sustainable prefabricated home provider, Ecoliving, understanding of the prefab sector is clearly growing and marketing director Esme Beaumont says there has been a growing number of inquiries from bushfire affected people interested to rebuild, particularly from those who’ve lost homes in remote areas that construction workers will struggle to access.

Archiblox has also had calls from customers…