Community Understanding and Awareness of Bushfire Safety: January 2013 NSW bushfires

January 2013 saw NSW areas around Yass, Shoalhaven and Coonabarabran impacted by large fires. At the request of the New South Wales Rural Fire Service, the Bushfire CRC coordinated a field research task force to interview a sample of respondents in each of the three communities affected by the fires, complemented by an online survey of residents of the same locations.
This research was conducted for the NSW RFS and investigated five community bushfire safety issues: (1) bushfire knowledge, planning and preparation; (2) understanding of existing official bushfire information (3) understanding of, responses to and perceived usefulness of the bushfire warnings immediately prior to and on the day of the fire; (4) experiences and behaviours of people affected by the fires; and (5) why relatively few dwellings (and no lives) were lost.