Community bushfire risk perception and preparedness

Risk communication is an important tool that is used to encourage communities and individuals to prepare their homes against the threat of bushfires. However, many factors contribute to the way a person perceives risk from bushfires and influences their decision to prepare. It’s important to understand the collective affects of these factors in order to develop risk communication mechanisms that are meaningful and understandable, and encourage people’s preparation for bushfires. By exploring these factors collectively the research conducted in this project aims to model the influence of these factors to develop new, active risk communication techniques that individuals can use to seek personally relevant information about bushfires. The research will help emergency management agencies to target those factors that most influence people’s decisions about preparing for bushfires, and help to develop risk communication mechanisms that promote sustained adoption of protective actions, increasing community resilience to bushfires in Tasmania and Australia-wide.