To date, very little research has been conducted on the threat posed by bushfires and their potential impacts on communities. Although much effort has been directed at devising tools to assist in assessing the level of bushfire risk on individual houses, such models do not capture the overall hazard posed by bushfires. To better elucidate bushfire risk, this study used over 300 observations to construct statistical models to evaluate the relationships between community loss and the magnitude of the bushfire hazard, the level of exposure of communities, vegetation type and pattern of settlement in Australia and the U.S. This study found that an estimate of the energy release (Byram’s intensity or energy release rate) of the fire was the best predictor of house loss once the number of houses exposed was known. Exposure (fire area and housing density) was found to be the most important factor in determining bushfire related losses. House loss models developed in this study have utility in a wide range of conditions in Australia and the US. Energy release measured through energy release rate contains a component of fire size, and makes an ideal variable to be incorporated into a bushfire threat scale that may be used for ranking the potential threat of bushfires and to aid in emergency planning.