Community bushfire safety issues: findings from interviews with residents affected by the 2009 Victorian bushfires

Fire Note 98: Immediately following the 7 February 2009 Victorian bushfires the Bushfire CRC organised a multi-agency Task Force to investigate and report on three aspects of the fire: fire behaviour; building survivability and infrastructure; and human behaviour and community safety. This investigation involved interviews with more than 500 survivors. This Fire Note reports analysis relating to human behaviour and community safety from 496 of these interview transcripts. The findings described in the final report provide a basis for fire and emergency service agencies to appraise their current community bushfire safety policies, priorities, programs and practises three and a half years after the Black Saturday fires. 

The full report for this project, as well as earlier Fire Notes are available on the project website.