Community

Due to bushfires impacting whole communities and residents’ safety being very much a function of their communities’ and neighbours level of preparation, collectively ensuring the community is prepared for bushfire is residents’ best hope of surviving a bushfire. Working with other community members is not a separate stage in itself but should rather take place at all of the above mentioned preparedness phases or levels. For example, during the planning stage residents should engage with their neighbours to organise working bees to thin out joint environment and create joint fire breaks, work together to lobby the council to do its share of

prior to fire season for teams of evacuated residents to return after the fire front has passed and during crucial post-front time (dousing spot fires) for saving buildings. Residents should also talk to their neighbours to determine whose home is most prepared in case the community refuge is not available or cannot be reached in time. Residents should also ensure routes to community refuges are safe and well practiced, and time how long this trip takes taking into account low visibility, the heat, tiredness, and traffic jams. Residents should also know other neighbours’ fire plans, have telephone numbers, advise each other if holidaying during the fire season and discuss expectations (i.e., should neighbour try and save house if they can).

Again, this is by no means an exhaustive list but illustrates the importance of viewing resident preparedness in terms of the whole community’s bushfire

preparedness. It also introduces the complexity inherent in preparedness (e.g., in relation to, for instance, the knowledge of ecology people require and the decision and competence elements involved in preparing). By working together to build their capacity to cope with bushfires (or any hazard), communities will develop and thus be able to draw on internal resources and competencies that will allow them to manage the demands, challenges, and changes posed by future hazards. Community preparedness therefore fosters more resilient communities (Paton, 2006; Paton & Johnston, 2001; Peterson & Reid, 2003).

2.5.6.1 A word on ‘community’

‘Community’, a term that will be used throughout this dissertation, is now widespread in hazard research and emergency management policy in Australia. This reflects the growing international recognition of the importance of community power, fostering resilient communities, and encouraging stronger links between

communities and government institutions (Phillips et al., 2011). Even the variables used in the present study to model bushfire preparedness (e.g., sense of community, community involvement) are generic in nature and although they accommodate for differences in the nature of ‘community’ and assesses the degree of participation in it, they does not explain who or where people participate. This signals the need for a clearer definition of community and further exploration of ‘who’, ‘what’, and ‘where’ the present study’s community measures are referring to.

In order to explore the ‘who’, ‘what’, and ‘where’, a mixed-methods approach, adopting both qualitative and quantitative data analysis techniques, is required so to obtain a richer understanding of how these individual and especially social variables interact and influence communities’ bushfire preparedness. These data will be presented and explored in Chapter Six (quantitative component) and Chapter Seven (qualitative component). Application of these findings will be presented in the action research component of the study outlined in Chapter Eight. Discussion now turns to providing a definition of community for the purpose of the present study.

When the concept of ‘community’ is used by hazard research and emergency management policy makers, its meaning is often assumed. This has resulted in the term losing definition and its capacity to organise thinking about an important level of bushfire preparedness. Community is a term that conveys different meanings to different people and while an all-inclusive definition remains contested, many descriptions and useful classifications have been proposed.

Community is most commonly, and broadly defined as an inhabited geographically defined area or group of people that can be identified by common

culture, interest, values et cetera, but who remain unbounded by the physical locale. This is the definition that is most appropriate for studying hazards whose location is geographically defined. Community as a locality is a commonly used definition of community in the hazards literature (Cottrell, 2005), especially in terms of bushfire preparedness as people living in the same area will likely experience the same bushfire risk. As a result, risk communication is mostly directed at localities. Furthermore, local fire brigades define their response area, or community they feel responsible for, as a certain area, often defined by park boundaries, topography, and council peripheries, around their fire station.

In the present study, community is defined primarily in relation to a specific geographic location with a municipal and corresponding fire brigade response area that is identified by its residents with regard to its falling within an area identified as being at risk from bushfire. While location is appropriate for defining the physical area exposed to risk, it is not useful for capturing the social and psychological diversity inherent within these areas and which can influence patterns of association between those residing within a location. Consequently, the communities in the present study are recognised to comprise of multidimensional attributes of place including groups of people living in a geographical proximal area, who share a common culture, values, beliefs; attributes which may or may not be bounded by the physical space. As such, the notions of community and place attachment (discussed in greater detail in section 2.6), which are integral to this study, are intimately related.