Abstract | The 2009 ‘Black Saturday’ bushfires led to 172 civilian deaths, and were proclaimed as one of
Australia’s worst natural disasters. The Victorian Bushfires Royal Commission was set up in
the wake of the fires to investigate the circumstances surrounding the death of each fatality.
Here, results from an analysis undertaken for the Commission to examine the household
preparedness policy ‘Prepare, Stay and Defend, or Leave Early’ (‘Stay or Go’), plus an
examination of the Commission’s recommendations, are explored in the broader context of
adaptation to bushfire. We find Victoria ill adapted to complex bushfire risk events like Black
Saturday due to changing settlement patterns and the known vulnerabilities of populations
living in fire prone areas, and increasingly in the future due to the influence of climate change
extending fire seasons and their severity. We suggest that uncertainty needs to be better
acknowledged and managed in fire risk situations, and that the responsibility for fire
preparedness should be more justly distributed. We suggest that a transformation in adaptation
is required to effectively manage complex bushfire risk events like Black Saturday, and
provide four key ways in which transformation in bushfire preparedness could be achieved. |