You mightn't have got much snow, SINSULL, but you're much cooler than most of us here.

There's a couple of books about fire behaviour that are worth reading; they are both set in Oz but they deal with the effects of ember attack and firestorms on structures and are thus relevant in other places where wildfires are common.

http://www.judyoz.com/ccp0-prodshow/complete-bushfire-safety-book-joan-webster-n was originally written just after the Ash Wednesday fires of 1983 but has been updated and is now published by CSIRO. [My link maker isn't working properly; the URL above links to info about The Complete Bushfire Safety Book by Joan Webster.]

http://books.google.com/books?id=hWZ331BOl10C&dq=Paul+Collins+bushfire&printsec= was written after the 2003 fires that devastated Canberra and is published by Allen and Unwin. [Ditto, but here the title is Burn: the epic story of bushfire in Australia by Paul Collins.]

Cheers, Rowan