Australia’s fire fatality rate of 0.6 per 100 000 of population, already low by international standards, has proved resistant to increasing expenditure on fire management and protection. The total spend on managing fire was estimated to be around 16 billion AUD in 2010 or 1.3% of GDP, giving rise to a total cost of 18 billion including losses. This funding has presumably arisen from adhoc investments by Government, over a long period of time, often following large event losses. Ashe et al. (2008) questioned whether the allocation of resources to manage this peril was ‘efficient’, but ‘How safe is safe enough?’ is not a question that can be answered without considering the cost of providing this safety. A risk-risk analysis of the regulatory cost of government spending estimated the Australian willingness-to-spend for preventing a loss of a life to be between 20 million and 50 million AUD. Thus the current allocation corresponds to between 800 and 320 ‘statistical’ deaths. The analysis shows the importance of carefully ensuring that the costs of regulation are at least grosso modo in line with the purported benefits. But questions remain: are the fire services over- or under-funded? If there are to be cuts were should they occur? Whose voices are more important, the general public whose perception of risk is conditioned by the media and recent experience, homeowners most likely to be most impacted, or so-called experts who may have their own biases? And who will end up baring the cost for the loss of homes constructed within fire-prone bushland? These decisions are intrinsically political, in the sense of being complicated and difficult, but worthy of analysis.  Similar questions are being asked of all areas of government expenditure and it would be surprising if emergency services are exempt.