Are we ready for bushfire? Perceptions of residents, landowners and fire authorities on Lower Eyre Peninsula, South Australia

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Are we ready for bushfire? Perceptions of residents, landowners and fire authorities on Lower Eyre Peninsula, South Australia D. Webera, E. Moskwaa,b, G.M. Robinsonb, , D.K. Bardsleyb, J. Arnolda, M.A. Davenportc ⁎

a

Natural and Built Environments Research Centre, University of South Australia, Mawson Lakes, South Australia, Australia Department of Geography, Environment and Population, School of Social Sciences, The University of Adelaide, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia c Department of Forest Resources and Center for Changing Landscapes, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, MN, United States b

ARTICLE INFO

ABSTRACT

Keywords: Bushfires Communities Peri-urban fringe Risk mitigation Fire management South Australia

Housing developments on the peri-urban fringe of Australian towns and cities create complexities for bushfire management due to the intermingling of natural, rural and urban spaces. To address the risk of bushfire, policies and practices have promoted and encouraged landowner responsibility for bushfire mitigation actions and behaviours. Using a postal survey, interviews and focus groups, we examine perceptions and actions regarding bushfire preparedness from the viewpoints of individual residents, landowners, and the local fire and environmental authorities on the Lower Eyre Peninsula of South Australia. Respondents living on larger sized allotments were more likely to perceive that their property was vulnerable to bushfire than those living on residential-sized allotments. Larger holdings tend to have more fire-susceptible vegetation than the smaller properties located in fringe suburbs, which seems to confer to those latter residents a sense of greater safety from bushfires. On the other hand, residents on larger blocks reported higher levels of bushfire management knowledge and expressed stronger connections to the place where they live, which influenced their willingness to work to mitigate bushfire risk. Importantly, there is a disconnection between such individual landholder preparedness for bushfire and that of the broader community. Individual actions often do not translate into collective responses, suggesting that a greater sense of shared responsibility will need to develop to enable effective mitigation of regional bushfire risk at a regional scale.

1. Introduction For many communities in Australia, the risk of wildfires (locally termed bushfires) is increasing both as a result of changing climatic conditions and increasing populations in vulnerable areas (Hughes, 2014; Sharples et al., 2016). Housing developments in peri-urban fringe areas are generating particular complexities for bushfire management and planning due to the increased intermingling of natural, semi-natural, rural and urban spaces (Bardsley et al., 2015). To address this risk, policies and practices continue to encourage individual households and landowners to take responsibility for their behaviours to mitigate risk of bushfire. It is important to understand how residents and key authorities view susceptibility to risk and what mitigating actions are considered important by individuals and the wider community to better guide such policy and actions. In this paper, we explore perceptions of peri-urban fringe residents and those of fire and environmental authorities with respect to bushfire vulnerability in Lower Eyre Peninsula (LEP) in South Australia (SA). We investigate individuals’ views on their

⁎

own preparations to face a potential bushfire and consider how these translate into the readiness of the whole community for a bushfire event. The position of Australian fire authorities has evolved over time. The Black Tuesday fires in Tasmania in 1967 (62 fatalities, 1300 homes destroyed) and the 1983 Ash Wednesday fires in Victoria and South Australia (75 fatalities, 1900 homes) were the catalyst for policies that stated residents threatened by a bushfire needed to leave their homes early to escape the hazard. By the start of this century, this view was being challenged on the basis that late evacuation was a prominent cause of fatalities and in many cases, people actively defending a wellprepared property could effectively protect their homes. In 2005 the Australian Fire and Emergency Service Authority (now AFAC: Australian Fire and Emergency Service Authorities Council) published its position, summarized as “Prepare, stay and defend, or leave early” and residents were encouraged to either prepare to stay and defend their property against fire, or to leave early as a bushfire advanced (Handmer and O’Neill, 2016; Venn and Quiggin, 2017). Media and

Corresponding author. E-mail address: [email protected] (G.M. Robinson).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2019.10.006 Received 20 February 2019; Received in revised form 29 September 2019; Accepted 5 October 2019 0016-7185/ © 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Please cite this article as: D. Weber, et al., Geoforum, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2019.10.006

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marketing teams widely shortened this to the less precise term, “stay or go”. Following the catastrophic 2009 Black Saturday fires in Victoria (173 fatalities, > 2000 homes) however, AFAC replaced the “Prepare, stay and defend, or leave early” message with a clear directive: “The safest action to protect life is for people to be away from the bushfire or threat of bushfire as early as possible”. This return to a message promoting that people leave their residences has been reinforced in research on the efficacy of evacuation compared with staying and defending (McLennan et al., 2019; Whittaker et al., 2013), especially as ‘stay-or-go’ policies can challenge even the most capable householders’ capacities to prepare or respond (Handmer and O’Neill, 2016). These policies have been accompanied by an increased expectation that individuals will manage land and property in preparation or response to bushfire. Within our study site of the LEP the provisional Bushfire Management Area (BMA) Plan states that ‘all persons in the LEP BMA are responsible for the mitigation of the bushfire risk for themselves, their neighbours and their community and therefore need to understand and partake in bushfire prevention and preparedness’ (CFS, 2015a, p.9). Comprehensive bushfire preparedness considers the exposure of property, the ability of built structures to withstand exposure, and whether residents are adequately prepared, including capacities to plan and act, the condition of grounds/property, and the equipment available to defend a property (Penman et al. 2013). Individual household preparation may include actions such as structural modifications to houses or external work such as reduction or removal of flammable materials, particularly if intentions are to stay and defend homes and other property. Bushfire preparedness and response actions and intentions amongst residents need to be understood, especially around regional towns that have experienced losses of human life, property and infrastructure to bushfires (Chas-Amil et al. 2013; CFS, 2015a). To investigate both individual and community preparedness, we used a postal survey sent to a sample of peri-urban fringe residents in the LEP, follow-up semi-structured interviews and a series of focus group discussions with key fire and environmental authorities.

community is influenced by social determinants such as perceptions of risk and vulnerability, extended stakeholder engagement in mitigating actions (Brummel, 2010), and the development of trust between residents and with key authorities (Davenport et al., 2007). Material and objective assets for bushfire risk mitigation and the level of place attachment residents possess are also important indicators of preparedness (Fresque-Baxter and Armitage, 2012; Proudley, 2013). Such assets affect the capacity to take desired actions while strong place attachment can provide mechanisms to foster collective opportunities for action (Anton and Lawrence, 2014; Beilin and Reid, 2015). People connect to places to create a sense of belonging through a collection of interpretations and feelings (place identity) while also having practical associations with a place (place dependence) (Brown et al., 2015; Williams et al., 1992). The bonds people have with landscapes are often deep and complex Davenport et al., 2007), and can intensify resource management conflicts when different segments of society ascribe alternative meanings to the same place (Raymond et al., 2011). Simply reminding rural residents of their attachment to place at the beginning of the bushfire season can facilitate greater mitigation and preparedness (Anton and Lawrence, 2016; Bonaiuto et al., 2016; Ratnam et al., 2016). Furthermore, behaviour concerning wildfire preparedness is partially explained by landholders’ landscape and ecosystem values (Bardsley et al., 2018; Nelson et al. 2005). BrenkertSmith et al. (2006) and Moskwa et al. (2016) report some landholders are unwilling to compromise certain landscape characteristics, such as naturalness or beauty in order to reduce bushfire risk. However, it is difficult to assess the impact of such choices without examining the nuances of any individual’s mitigation response. For example, a resident may not have cleared flammable native vegetation but instead invested in appropriate building materials, firefighting equipment and training to mitigate risk. Improving any individual’s capacity to adapt systems to risk involves five stages of preparedness, progressing from minimal awareness (and therefore no intention to change) to contemplation (awareness of a risk but no commitment to action), preparation (exploration of options to adapt), action, and maintenance or consolidation (Prochaska et al., 1992). However, individual preparations do not necessarily translate into community readiness. This is an important distinction for this paper: namely that some individuals/households can take actions to mitigate bushfire risk, but the community in general may not be prepared, primarily because it is only certain individuals within a community who undertake mitigating actions. The active participation of all community members is critical for building resilience to disasters requiring collaborative efforts, social networks and effective social learning (Aldunce et al., 2016; Brummel, 2010; Edwards et al., 2000). Research on community resilience in the face of disasters, such as bushfires, directly links community development pathways to specific economic and social circumstances, with community resilience promoted through the capacities of individuals to enact response behaviours (Robinson and Carson, 2016, 115). From a psychological perspective resilience is recognised as ‘the process of coping with stressors, adversity, change or opportunity in a manner that results in the identification, fortification, and enrichment of resilient qualities or protective factors’ (Richardson 2002, 308). Importantly, such notions of community resilience have been directly incorporated into disaster preparedness planning (e.g. Attorney-General's Department 2011). Yet, Bronfenbrenner’s bioecological theory suggests resilience can be measured at different scales (Boon et al., 2012), and that any conception of resilience may be applicable across a whole community, or at the scale of individual households, or both. While multiple-individual preparedness can play an important role in creating communities that can collectively take decisive actions, their social composition and interactions are also important (Brenkert-Smith, 2011; McCaffrey, 2015; Steelman and McCaffrey, 2011). Clearly then, community bushfire readiness is more than just the sum of individual household preparedness (Uscher-Pines det al., 2013) - the presence of and connection to key

2. Background Bushfires are dynamic events for which complex cultural, hazard, landscape, climatic, preparation and response conditions must be considered when managing risk (Neale and Weir, 2015). In this paper we focus our attention on preparedness of individuals, households and the community. We addressed the notion of vulnerability, which refers to susceptibility to danger and the absence of or limitations in capacity to adapt in response (Adger, 2006; Smit and Wandel, 2006). Solongaarchchi et al. (2012) describe factors that contribute to social vulnerability in a bushfire context such as age, income, tenancy arrangements and education. For example, low income and poor education can contribute to limiting access to opportunities to prepare for, respond to and recover from the hazard, and so appropriate fire education programs are vital in areas where socially marginal populations intersect with higher bushfire risk (Cutter, 2016). Eriksen (2014b) contends this vulnerability is not just spatial or socio-economic and highlights the vulnerability of women due to roles as carers for children and the elderly. More targeted engagement is required that accounts for the complex social, economic, and cultural conditions that contribute to individual and community abilities to plan for and manage risk. Risk can be mitigated through the recognition of vulnerability in local contexts; through the presence and strength of effective social networks, the availability of resources, or the entitlement of individuals to call on these resources (Adger and Kelly, 1999; Preston et al., 2008). For example, when people are concerned about bushfires, they are more likely to have a written and practiced bushfire plan, and to be more thoroughly prepared with rainwater tanks and sprinkler systems (Bardsley et al., 2018; Every et al., 2016). The adaptive capacity of a 2

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Fig. 1. Study site and location of respondents to questionnaire survey.

community organisations and the structure of communication networks are vital characteristics for collective hazard preparedness and response (Akama et al. 2014; Dickinson et al., 2015; McFarlane et al., 2012; Paveglio et al., 2012, 2015). Various types of connection are formed among people living in a locality, ranging from club memberships to the creation of informal social networks, expressions of ‘neighbourliness’ and local civility (Stroud and Jegels, 2014). These connections foster increased social capital and help to create networks that are relied on during times of need, stress or crisis (Bardsley and Rogers, 2010; Fresque-Baxter and Armitage, 2012). The shift towards relational versus locational communities in many countries, including Australia, can create a further challenge for facilitating collective action (Mackay, 2005). As a result there are several domains that capture aspects of community-level readiness. The ability of a community to collectively marshal resources without external intervention (i.e., self-sufficiency) can serve as an indicator of community capacity, another is a community's ability to

engage diverse stakeholder groups in meaningful ways (ie, strong partnerships) (Paton and Johnston, 2017; Prior and Ericksen, 2013). The analysis of individual and community preparedness has real policy implications because initiatives that tangibly address and improve societal adaptive capacity, thereby reducing vulnerability, are commonly expected to be evident at the community scale (Ford and Smit, 2004). However, the whole concept of community responsibility may be a misnomer because there will likely always be differences in interest, availability and capability of residents and collective mechanisms to ensure involvement of all community members in fire preparation may be absent. On the other hand, by better understanding how individuals work independently or collectively to mitigate risk, targeted engagement could evolve through hands-on experience, stronger networks and supportive learning environments. We explore both individuals’ perceptions of bushfire risk and their actions, as well as their perceptions of the readiness of their communities and their inter-relationships to develop an improved understanding of regional 3

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bushfire preparation and response.

killed (AEMI, 2015). Then in 2009, two large fires impacted on Port Lincoln destroying 13 homes, 11 sheds and stock, and the State Emergency Services headquarters (Rodrigues et al., 2009). LEP urban development pressures are increasing. In the last decade, new housing estates were established within the peri-urban fringe, with plans for a further 300- to 500-block housing development approved in late 2014 (Austin, 2014). Most occupied dwellings are detached houses, ranging from 75% in the built-up areas to 95% in more rural areas (ABS, 2016). The remainder include small numbers of semi-detached houses, flats and apartments, and other dwellings (e.g. caravans and boats). On the outskirts of townships, established houses are generally on allotments typically between one and four hectares, contrasting with new housing estates with half to one-hectare allotments surrounded by large areas of crops, pastures and native vegetation (Raine and Horne, 2015). Transient populations are also important. For example, nearby Coffin Bay has a permanent population of some 650 people, but over the summer months this number typically triples with tourists (local government interviewee, pers. comm.). For that reason, as we examine the perceptions of the individual and collective preparedness in the LEP, the study design allows for a comparison of perceptions, actions and behaviours of the different types of residents, including consideration of whether living arrangements are a major indicator of preparedness.

2.1. The South Australian governance context In SA, the Country Fire Service (CFS) has the mission to protect life, property and the environment from bushfire. It aims to reduce loss and damage from fire through improved understanding of risk by encouraging and supporting community education activities and working with stakeholders to facilitate the development of Bushfire Management Area Plans (CFS, 2009). In its quest for fire-safer communities, the CFS (2015b) advises residents to prepare their home and property, consider physical and emotional preparation and have a written and practiced individual Bushfire Survival Plan. The SA Department for Environment and Water (DEW), formerly the Department of Environment, Water and Natural Resources (DEWNR), manages vegetation on public land, has responsibility for fire management on public lands and contributes to fire responses as a CFS Brigade. DEW conducts prescribed burns to strategically reduce fuel hazards as well as for ecological reasons. Prescribed burning on public lands is coordinated using a collaborative approach between DEW, the CFS, SA Water and Forestry SA, but does not deal with private lands unless specific local arrangements are coordinated (DEWNR, 2017). Managing vegetation on a property forms a key component of any individual’s preparation, with guidelines produced by CFS and the Native Vegetation Council (2009) through the SA Native Vegetation Act 2001. In recent years, regulations have even been eased to facilitate clearance of native vegetation on private property. For example, the 2012 amendments to the SA Development Act 2003 allow landowners to clear vegetation within 20 m surrounding their home without having to undergo approval from the Native Vegetation Council, and further allowances were granted to clear beyond 20 m to support the evolution of fire-safer communities. Residents are more likely to prepare their property for a bushfire than to plan for what they would do during a bushfire (Every et al., 2016; McLennan et al., 2015; Trigg et al., 2015). Despite ongoing awareness and safety campaigns, research by Every et al. (2016) found two-thirds of the residents of the Sampson Flat region that recently experienced a bushfire event had no Bushfire Survival Plan in place, or they had a plan exposed them to the risks of a ‘last minute’ evacuation (Blanchi et al., 2014; Handmer and Tibbits, 2005; Shahparvari et al., 2016). Anecdotal evidence from the CFS suggests that there is no reason to believe the levels of preparation elsewhere in the state would be appreciably higher. There are strong arguments that residents need to move beyond notional unwritten plans to leave or stay and defend, and rather construct well thought-out sophisticated alternatives for a broad spectrum of scenarios. While there is a known gap between what authorities are recommending and individual household practice, community responses are not even understood to this extent.

3. Methods A mixed methods approach was employed incorporating a selfcompletion survey, semi-structured interviews with residents and local government staff, and a series of five focus groups with key stakeholders involved in bushfire risk mitigation. The postal questionnaire was distributed with a reply-paid envelope to 836 households located in peri-urban and rural township settings across the LEP. To be as representative as possible, we sought responses from four (non-exclusive) sub-groups using a stratified sampling technique: residents living in medium and high fire-risk areas; those close to large tracts of native vegetation; those in peri-urban and rural settings; and those living in units, townhouses and free-standing houses. With 191 valid responses received, the response rate was 23%. Fig. 1 shows the study site and the locations of residences of survey respondents. 3.1. Questionnaire The survey comprised 55 questions on eight topics: socio-demographics; description of property (including allotment size and proximity to vegetation); place values (place attachment and reasons for living where they do); experience with, and knowledge of bushfire; risk perceptions; preparedness activities undertaken to mitigate risk; perceptions of vegetation management regimes; and perceptions of the agencies responsible for managing public land and enforcing current policies (including levels of trust and views on organisational effectiveness). Specific questions analysed particular preparedness treatments and actions (Table 1). Because of the weak link between intention and action (Heberlein, 2012), the focus of the activities evaluated were passive preparation actions for greater house protection in which all residents had engaged, rather than hypothetical activities related to actions they intended to take at the time of a fire. Questions seeking perceptions or attitudes asked respondents to rate their level of agreement with a series of statements on a Likert scale from one (strongly disagree) to seven (strongly agree). To explore respondents’ bushfire knowledge, participants were asked to self-assess their knowledge on the topic on a scale from one (very poor) to seven (very knowledgeable). To examine place attachment, participants were asked their level of agreement (again from one to seven) with statements pertaining to both place identity and place dependence (Williams and Vaske, 2003). With multiple items in many of the questions, the survey took approximately 20–30 min to complete and the results were

2.2. The Study Area: Lower Eyre Peninsula (LEP) Port Lincoln, the largest town on the LEP (Fig. 1), has a population of some 14,700 people with growth of 11.5% between 2001 and 2011 (ABS, 2015, 2016). The region’s economic industries are based on agriculture, fishing and aquaculture, tourism, mineral resources and steel production. It experiences a Mediterranean climatic regime of hot summers and cool winters that renders large areas susceptible to bushfires (Hughes, 2014). Two large national parks, totaling 52,620 ha, comprising largely Eucalyptus and Allocasuarina spp. woodlands, contain important biodiversity assets that expand into areas of remnant vegetation in the landscapes surrounding Port Lincoln (DEH, 2004). In 2001, a fire on the town’s outskirts burnt approximately 14,000 ha of bushland, with some settlements experiencing major damage. In 2005, the Black Tuesday fires burnt some 82,000 ha to the north of Port Lincoln and led to significant human and economic losses, including nine fatalities, 79 houses completely destroyed, and 47,000 livestock 4

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Table 1 Complete list of actions assessed by respondents in relation to risk mitigation.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30

Actions

Yes (%)

No (%)

Don’t Know (%)

NA (%)

n

Clear leaves, twigs and long grass immediately adjacent to the house Clear leaves. twigs and long grass within 20 m of the house Thin shrubs or trees so that nearby plants and trees do not touch Remove bushes immediately adjacent to the house Cut back overhanging tree branches close to the house Prune large trees by removing all branches that are close to the ground Remove large trees within 20 m of the house Remove large trees within 40 m of the house Landscape with fire resistant materials (e.g. rocks) Landscape with less flammable plant species Move combustible materials such as firewood and wooden garden furniture away from the house Water frequently during the bushfire season Undertake controlled ‘backyard burns’ of green waste Clear the gutters of leaves Install gutter protection Cover underfloor spaces to prevent embers and flame entering Cover all gaps and vents to reduce the risk of embers entering the house or cavities (e.g. roof, wall) Obtain and prepare fire-fighting equipment (e.g. hoses and a pump) Obtain and prepare equipment such ladder, buckets and mops to put out spot fires Install seals and/or draft protectors around windows and doors Install a sprinkler system on or around the house Install shutters Prepare a kit of personal protective clothing for each member of the household Obtain a battery-powered radio Store important documents and possessions off-site or in a fire-safe compartment Develop a Bushfire Action Plan (BAP) Regularly update all household members on the Bushfire Action Plan (BAP) Install metal, asphalt, slate, tile or other fire-resistant roofing materials Install double/thermal pane / tempered glass in windows and exterior glass doors Install stucco, metal, brick or other fire-resistant exterior siding on your house

89.6 81.6 70.4 65.5 73.0 70 39.0 22.6 53.8 58.5 69.8 70.8 50.3 86.6 19.7 31.4 40.6 61.5 67.7 33.3 23.3 4.6 36.0 69.5 47.5 62.0 52.0 60.9 6.3 44.3

2.7 8.9 17.3 20.9 3.4 10.6 32.0 44.6 33.7 25.1 12.6 20.2 26.6 4.3 73.4 31.4 43.3 33.0 28.0 55.9 71.6 88.6 59.6 26.7 50.8 33.7 38.4 32.4 86.9 48.3

0 0 0.6 0 0 0.6 0.6 0.6 0 5.3 0.5 1.1 0.6 0.5 0.6 0 2.8 0.6 1.1 2.8 0 1.7 0.6 0 0 0.5 1.1 0.6 2.9 1.1

7.7 9.5 11.7 13.6 23.6 18.9 28.5 32.1 12.4 11.1 17.0 7.9 22.5 8.6 6.4 37.2 13.3 5.0 3.2 7.9 5.1 5.1 3.9 3.7 1.7 3.8 8.5 6.1 4.0 6.3

183 179 179 177 178 180 172 168 169 171 182 178 169 186 173 172 180 179 186 177 176 175 178 187 181 184 177 173 175 171

analysed statistically using SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences).

agencies (Natural Resources Eyre Peninsula and DEW) in order to engage stakeholders from organisations with different core missions, and one with a group of local residents. The residential focus group pursued themes emerging from the survey and interviews related to residents’ knowledge and actions to mitigate bushfires and manage the environment; their sources of information; and their interactions within the community and local government, CFS and DEW. The focus groups also presented a valuable opportunity for community members to exchange views and debate key themes, as well as developing understanding of their participation in environmental management, the concerns of others and the need for a community-based approach to fire management (Hargreaves, 2011). These discussions were each approximately two hours in duration and were audio recorded, transcribed in full, and analysed using NVivo in the same manner as the interviews. While we believe the multiple methods used assist validation of results, we caution readers that an apparent ‘awareness-action’ gap has been cited by several authors. For example, Eriksen and Gill (2010) found that landholder attitudes were not strong predictors of their practices and decision making in relation to fire preparation. Similarly, Whittaker et al. (2013) point to tardy actions by residents who wait until they are directly threatened before evacuating, even though they may have other stated plans. Thus, subjective explanations of experiences or goals are not necessarily indicative of real future actions.

3.2. Interviews Following the survey, twenty semi-structured interviews were undertaken with local residents to explore their understanding of the issues in more depth. Interviewees were survey respondents who indicated their willingness to participate in follow-up research (n = 15), supplemented by five individuals who were recruited using the snowball method comprising personal or local networks of existing interviewees (Noy, 2008). Interviews were also conducted with four local government staff having planning and/or bushfire management experience. The semi-structured interviews (approx. 60 min) enabled valuable insights to be drawn regarding complex social constructs and understandings (Bryman, 2012). Nine questions guided the interviews, but additional questions were generated depending on responses. Similar approaches to examining perceptions of and responses to bushfire risk have been applied successfully in comparable contexts, and the repetition of the methodology allows for some direct comparisons to be made across the different situations both within Australia and in other countries (Bushnell et al., 2007; Eriksen and Prior, 2013; Fischer et al., 2014; McLennan et al., 2015). The interviews were audio recorded and transcribed verbatim before being analysed using NVivo data analysis software to examine patterns. This involved coding themes that developed as the analysis progressed and exploring relationships between themes and concepts by continually moving back-and-forth between the transcripts as recommended by Kvale (1983), to ensure themes were not too far removed from the original narrative (Thompson et al., 1989).

4. Results 4.1. Questionnaire The 191 valid responses from the questionnaire survey comprised a mixture of residents living in areas that respondents described as urban (22%), peri-urban (36%) and rural (42%). Two-thirds of properties (68%) were immediately adjacent to tracts of vegetation. In total, 22% of respondents were members of the CFS or had CFS members in their household, and 12% were members of an environmental group such as a Friends of Parks or a Landcare group (Table 2).

3.3. Focus groups Three focus group discussions were undertaken with locally-based representatives of the SA CFS and State Government environmental 5

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Table 2 Characteristics of respondents: comparison by allotment size. Characteristic

Allotment sizeA

% of respondents

Male respondent

Larger lot Smaller lot

59 60

Age 18–35 years

Larger lot Smaller lot

5 9

Over 65 years

Larger lot Smaller lot

19 33

Household with dependent childrenB

Larger lot Smaller lot

32 19

Single person household

Larger lot Smaller lot

24 21

Tertiary education completed

Larger lot Smaller lot

34 36

Annual household income over AU $120,000B,C Lived in suburb/area for less than 10 yearsB

Larger lot Smaller lot Larger lot Smaller lot

20 12 20 34

Table 3 Selected actions undertaken to mitigate risk as a function of allotment size.

A Larger lot is defined as 2 ha or more in size, compared to a smaller residential-sized lot of up to 2 ha. B Chi-Square tests revealed significant differences based on lot size for this attribute (at p < .05). C The mean annual household income in South Australia is $82, 628 (ABS, 2013).

4.1.1. Place attachment Respondents showed strong place attachment overall (M = 5.69). Their place identity (i.e., the way they identify with the LEP and its symbolic meanings; M = 6.06, SD = 1.173) was significantly higher than their place dependence (i.e., the way they value the LEP as a setting for goal and activity needs; M = 5.19, SD = 1.415, t (1 7 1) = 9.582, p < .001). The relaxed lifestyle the LEP offered and the ability to escape from urban life were the two most important reasons for residents choosing to live where they do. Residents living on larger lots expressed stronger place identity (M = 6.29, SD = 0.895) than those on smaller lots (M = 5.97, SD = 1.221, t (159.34) = −1.963, p < .05) and agreed to a greater extent with such statements as ‘I am very attached to the LEP’ and ‘The LEP is a special place for my family’.

Action

Allotment sizeA

% undertaking the action

Significance levelB

Clear leaves, twigs and long grass immediately adjacent to the house

Larger Smaller

100 89

p < .01

Clear leaves, twigs and long grass for a distance of about 20 m from the house

Larger Smaller

98 84

p < .01

Thin shrubs or trees so that nearby trees do not touch

Larger Smaller

90 75

p < .05

Cut back overhanging tree branches close to the house

Larger Smaller

100 93

p < .05

Prune large trees by removing all branches close to the ground

Larger Smaller

95 82

p < .05

Remove large trees within 20 m of the house

Larger Smaller

66 48

p < .05

Move combustible materials away from the house

Larger Smaller

92 80

p < .05

Undertake controlled ‘backyard burns’ of green waste

Larger Smaller

83 55

p < .001

Develop a Bushfire Survival Plan

Larger Smaller

79 57

p < .01

Regularly update all household members on the Bushfire Survival Plan

Larger Smaller

72 50

p < .01

Obtain and prepare firefighting equipment

Larger Smaller

83 55

p < .001

Installed a sprinkler system on or around the house

Larger Smaller

34 20

p < .05

Obtained a battery-powered radio

Larger Smaller

79 63

p < .05

A

Larger lot is defined as 2 ha or more in size, compared to a smaller residential-sized lot of up to 2 ha. B Results produced using Chi-Square tests.

4.1.2. Perceived risk and vulnerability Respondents recognised they were living in an area that experiences bushfires, with a majority (84%) thinking a bushfire was likely to occur within one year, and 92% considering it likely within 30 years. Size of property did not affect these views. While 23% of respondents did not feel that their own property was vulnerable in the event of a major bushfire, 55% felt their property was at least somewhat vulnerable. Respondents living on larger sized allotments (M = 5.02, SD = 1.673) were significantly more likely to perceive that their property was vulnerable to bushfire than those living on residential-sized allotments (M = 4.53, SD = 1.673, t(144.457) = -1.593, p = .05).

highly were more likely to perceive that they could reduce the risk of bushfire (F(2,179) = 7.43, p = .001). Further, Cohen’s effect size value (d = 0.47) suggested a moderate practical significance. A Tukey post hoc test revealed the mean bushfire knowledge rating for respondents believing they had ‘a lot’ of influence in reducing risk (5.41 ± 1.08) was significantly higher compared with those thinking they had ‘some’ (4.75 ± 1.107p = .04) or ‘none/not very much’ influence (4.56 ± 1.637, p = .03). Residents living on larger blocks were significantly more likely to have engaged in bushfire preparedness actions on their property such as clearing leaves, thinning shrubs, pruning branches and removing trees, as well as preparing a Bushfire Survival Plan and fire-fighting kits (Table 3).

4.1.3. Landholder physical preparedness Residents living on larger lots reported significantly higher levels of personal knowledge of bushfire management (M = 5.28, SD = 1.147) than those living on smaller lots (M = 4.76, SD = 1.274, t (1 7 3) = −2.719, p < .01). The former also perceived they had greater influence on reducing risk on their property, with 46% believing they had ‘a lot’ of influence compared with 29% of those on smaller lots (significant at p < .05). Regardless of allotment size, there was a significant difference between groups in terms of reported knowledge and self-efficacy (i.e., respondents’ perceived level of influence in reducing bushfire risk). Those respondents who rated their knowledge of bushfire management

4.2. Interviews 4.2.1. Landholder emotional preparedness Among interview participants there was a general understanding of their local bushfire risk. It was not only the physical preparations undertaken to prepare their home and property that were important for feelings of readiness for the bushfire season, but also a need for emotional preparedness. During interviews, discussions of emotional preparedness followed a spectrum from feeling assured to feeling vulnerable, and so we discuss our wider findings in relation to interview 6

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responses under those themes.

The guy this way here [pointing to neighbour], there’s a lot of really thick scrub there that I don’t particularly like, and he hasn’t taken any real steps to clear and in summer the grass gets fairly long in his yard. All he’s got is a little ride-on lawnmower and it takes a lot of time to do that on the amount of acreage. So, it’s a little bit disappointing. (Male interviewee, larger block, discussing the behaviour of a neighbour) We’ve got big old melaleuca trees there, which are the worst. They go up, and that’s the one thing, we do have a big one out the back, probably about 20 m from the house but … the shade is beautiful. So, I haven’t gotten rid of that … There were some other trees that were closer to the house and we have slowly got rid of them. (Female interviewee, larger block, on managing vegetation)

4.2.2. Assured respondents Feelings of assuredness emerged from various actions including engaging in physical preparations to reduce bushfire risk, but especially in association with having organised a bushfire plan and staying vigilant during the bushfire season; i.e. because they were well-prepared, they felt more assured about their safety. Feelings of assuredness were linked to specific actions, such as clearing vegetation around the house: We built a house there, so we've done all the things you should do. We haven’t got any trees near the house, and what plants that we have are low growing…, haven’t got any mulch or anything around the house, I prune all the trees up. We clear all the undergrowth and stuff. So, it's all managed pretty well. (Female interviewee, smaller block, on managing vegetation)

4.3. Focus groups

There was a strong perception amongst assured landholders of being able to manage their land and reduce their state of vulnerability. Interviewees talked about the many ways they could reduce risk through vegetation management and landscaping with less flammable species and rocks. While they recognised that a bushfire risk still existed despite these preparatory actions, respondents felt they were important in creating safer places to live:

4.3.1. Resident focus groups Themes that emerged from the focus groups were very similar. The need to rigorously prepare properties and be clear about evacuation strategies were emphasized by many people, even though they confessed this could be difficult. My plan is I prepare my property the best I can. All through summer, winter and autumn I will spray and mow extensively. There's no growth around my place at all! (Female focus group participant, larger block, discussing bushfire preparedness)

You’re never going to be able to be a hundred percent [certain] that the fire’s not going to go through, but we believe we’ve done the best that we can. (Female interviewee, smaller block, discussing bushfire preparedness) When the fire came through … I’d finished trimming up all the grass around here… I’d just cleaned that up. So, when it all come up, it was – it was not a problem … I wasn’t too much worried … People said, “Oh you’re lucky”. I said, “No it was more good management than good luck.” With my plan I had to be here … I was driving downtown and I saw the smoke and I thought that’s suspiciously close to home … So, I just bolted and come straight home and straight away got everything going, plugged me gutters. Got everything organised, got me backpack filled up and just walked around and got everything going and basically sat and waited for it. (Male interviewee, larger block, discussing bushfire preparedness)

One participant suggested that when different members of a household have contrasting bushfire plans (for example, one person may stay, and another may leave early), or if they do not completely agree with each other’s proposed actions, knowing and adhering to them in the event of a bushfire can be difficult (for the gendered aspects of this situation, see Reynolds and Tyler, 2018): I live in bush and we knew it was going to happen one day. It had to happen, and it’ll happen again. And even though we had a plan and I didn’t want to be there, and the plan was that we would leave early and that didn’t go to plan. You know I guess it’s, maybe it is a sense of confidence, it’s the headset to go, if you’re stuck, whichever way you’re going you’ve thought through lots of possibilities and so the panic, it reduced the panic. I sort of went into this automatic plan process and just did everything, because we had done all the thinking before the day, and so that was the lucky part, even though we weren’t intending to be there it was the thinking of it all that had happened. And it was still frightening for other reasons … we knew CFS had said to us “You’re in bush, you’re too high risk, we will not bring a truck in.” So, we knew that was never going to happen and we were fine with it; that was our choice. But it was also then how prepared are we and what will we do? And I was also in conflict with my partner. He’d always said, “I’m staying”, and I said, “Well I’m not”, and we even got to the point where it was time to go and I thought, “Well we’ve had this argument, I’m going, you’re staying, … I can’t change your mind right now.” (Female focus group participant, larger block, on bushfire planning)

These participants are describing the importance of having a ‘sense of confidence’ in their bushfire preparedness. As risk mitigation actions and having bushfire plans serve as mechanisms for confidence or guidance, they are also useful in removing some of the uncertainty out of decision-making in the event of a bushfire. In such a context, one participant emphasised the need to be alert and able to adapt during the bushfire season: We get the bushfire warnings on our phones, which is great. Pretty much everybody tunes into the radio if they’ve heard on the TV … At my workplace, we keep the radio on on days of catastrophic fire warnings, just to be aware. We’re in a Bushfire Safer Zone at work, but it’s just to keep your finger on the pulse with the fires … So, you know, you keep your finger on the pulse in case things do change. And it’s that ability to be aware and then adapt to, … adapt with your psychological preparedness, I guess. (Female interviewee, larger block, discussing bushfire preparedness)

Other respondents highlighted the influence of gender over differences in preparation goals amongst members of the household. One female focus group participant on a larger block went on to describe her dependence on her husband to defend their property:

4.2.3. Vulnerable respondents A sense of vulnerability amongst participants seemed to arise from nagging feelings that both they and their neighbours could do more to physical prepare their properties. Feelings of vulnerability were particularly reflected upon by participants who had not personally engaged in physical preparation actions, or who would be dependent on other family members to respond effectively during bushfires.

My husband would do more of the preparation than me because he’s retired and I’m not … and he’ll actually [get the water pump out], because it’s heavy and he’s stronger and he’s … taller! There are also cases where people believed they had prepared adequately, but in fact were still considered vulnerable by the 7

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authorities. In the focus groups, regional authorities identified a range of these residents who may not be as well-prepared as they think they are, or who may be physically well-prepared without also realising the need to be emotionally prepared:

One of the difficulties with facilitating broader collaboration stems from stakeholders’ different environmental management priorities, ranging from a primary focus on risk mitigation, to those who rather emphasise the need for biodiversity conservation, urban expansion, or activities for tourists. As a result, decision-makers face many challenges in policy formulation and implementation. This extends to considerations of dealing with flammable material within townships and not just that present in wooded areas outside townships:

Male: You could be quite safe to stay and defend until you see that … wall of fire coming at you … and freak out. And people will get in their car and go because unless you’re used to that – you can watch CFS adverts and stuff, but you’re not going to know how you’re going to behave. Female: No that’s right, and the sound and the smell and all the other visual cues. Male: And I do it for a job … it still freaks me out.

I think [the Native Vegetation Act] should not apply in a township area because … the biggest threat to Coffin Bay is from within the town itself because there is that much vegetation in there … There’s a new sub-division gone in there and of course they had to pay a lot of money to get rid of that [vegetation]. Now to me, once it’s zoned residential you should be able to – I’m not saying get rid of everything but it’s … You’re trying to have a safer community and having all the native vegetation there and the restrictions that apply to get rid of it in a residential area is to me a bit [irrational]. I’m not saying get rid of it all, but at least you can modify it and make it a lot safer than what it is without having to go through all the red tape. (Male local resident)

4.3.2. Agency Focus Groups Collaboration, trust, and recognition of the expertise and ongoing efforts of staff and volunteers involved with bushfire management emerged as clear themes in the agency focus group discussions. Because of that history of fires and the practice we’ve got, Eyre Peninsula is blessed with some really good firefighters, whether it’s DEWNR or CFS. So, there’s some probably pretty good mutual respect there because of what people do during big incidents there … It’s everybody on the same team fighting the fire here. (Male Environmental Officer) The CFS lives on passion – it’s like DEWNR lives on passion. (Female Environmental Officer)

Relationships between authorities and community members who are prioritising different agendas can also be quite complex, with one resident stating, ‘It’s easier to seek forgiveness than permission (to clear vegetation)’. Differences in prioritizing actions between residents and authorities can have major consequences, particularly if residents ignore advice to leave their property in the face of an advancing bushfire (Johnson et al., 2012; Whittaker et al., 2017). In considering such challenges, one male Fire Officer contemplated the need to improve community readiness for bushfire, but acknowledged the success of current community programs in SA (see Every et al., 2016):

While it was evident from the questionnaires, interviews and public focus groups that trust in fire agencies is high, the CFS staff also pointed out that they do a lot of work to manage people’s expectations about firefighting. They explained that some residents are advised it is unlikely they will receive firefighting assistance during a fire and, increasingly, that it is impossible to ‘stop’, ‘suppress’ or ‘extinguish’ fires burning under very high fire-danger conditions.

[The] situation will never be totally resolved, but even if 50% of the population were [prepared], it’d make a massive difference. [The staff] have turned stuff around and you do go out to fires now and find people are prepared, particularly in the areas where [there are] Community Fire Safe Groups.

4.4. Integration of findings Thematic coding using NVivo enabled analysis of the focus group and interview data concerning the major strengths and weaknesses of household and community bushfire risk preparation. Several key strengths were identified across a range of important categories (Table 4), namely (1) communication with residents; (2) programs and information; (3) trust in fire authorities; (4) staff expertise and efforts; and (5) collaboration. In particular, trust in the fire authorities was evident, with one resident freely stating, ‘I'm pretty confident they could stop it’ when referring to a bushfire reaching the house. This was supported by the questionnaire data, which revealed relatively high levels of trust in fire authorities (M = 5.31). Several important weaknesses in household and community preparation were identified, again falling into separate categories: (1) collaboration; (2) capital and capacity; (3) stakeholder priorities; (4) policy and legal jurisdiction; (5) increased bushfire risk; (6) community misperceptions; and (7) mistrust in environmental agencies. Table 5 presents examples of quotes for each of these challenges. Identified as both a strength and a weakness, the issue of collaboration was highlighted regarding the need for broader stakeholder engagement involving various government agencies at different levels (local, state, federal) working together. For example, one male Natural Resources Officer said:

Engagement and information sharing programs were also recognised by staff members as contributing to building community readiness: I mean you look at the mechanisms of government and so forth, there’s always comments, requests, influences. And I don’t mean influences in a bad sense, but those influences, comments, and questions will always drive because they inform. And whilst they inform it provides opportunities for community resilience and community safety then that’s what we’re about. So that information is what takes us one step further. (Male Fire Officer) Fire authorities expressed their reliance on community members to play their part in risk mitigation: I tell people to turn around and look in your own backyard; you can do more to look after yourself and keep yourself safe. (Female Fire Prevention Officer, discussing bushfire preparedness) We can’t promise a fire truck in everybody’s street. So, we’re reliant on the members of the community and the people who own the assets at risk of fire to do the right thing. (Male Fire Prevention Officer, discussing bushfire preparedness) Engaged residents can be useful facilitators for sharing information and building collective responsibilities, as a female focus group participant on a larger block suggests:

I don’t think it only needs to be the state government stuff, I think it needs to be – not just DEWNR and CFS, I think it needs to be a more collaborative approach … so you know the government agencies, whether it be state or local, only have limited budgets, and so we need to all get together and work out what we can do.

The lack of knowledge is quite concerning, so I find myself trying to feed them little bits of information and, you know with what I do know, and hopefully some of it sinks in. 8

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Table 4 Main capacities identified, with examples of quotes. Strength

Example quotes

Communication with residents

[We use] radio, papers, trying to get as many reasonable articles explaining what we do out and about … all we can do is keep trying. (Female Community Engagement Officer) I just wish that every rural woman would [attend a bushfire preparedness workshop]. It just gives you so much confidence and understanding to either get out early or prepare your place and stay and defend, and you know I just shudder at the amount of women who just don’t understand the whole threat … It gives you the information to make a well-considered informed choice.

Programs and Information

(Female local resident) We’re trying to gather as much information that’s currently out there already and then combining it with local information and information from groups and brigades. Even if it’s things like ‘what are the hazards in the landscape that prevent them from fighting a fire?’ or ‘is it too dense a vegetation they can’t get in there?’ We’re trying to capture all of that to work out what the likelihood of fire is in the first place. So if it is native vegetation but it’s unlikely to burn, or it’s not going to burn anywhere near any assets that are at risk then it’s not a fire risk to anyone, so we don’t need to do anything with it. So it’s working out all of that, where the assets are located, and then working out appropriate treatments. (Female Fire Officer) Commenting on the benefits of small group community engagement programs: It’s giving them the option, you know, it’s your responsibility to stay alive, when they say move, move, get everybody you know to move. So that the community responds as a whole and helping them to understand that if you need to go somewhere for a sanctuary, this is a safe spot, and just promulgating that information through a small group where you know, they can ask the questions that they may not be comfortable asking in a public meeting or they may not be comfortable trying to get off the state-wide CFS website. It’s very particular to Port Lincoln, helping them understand their local environment.

Trust in fire authorities

Staff expertise and efforts

Collaboration

(Female local resident) We run a series of events at different levels sometimes by invite, sometimes by inserting ourselves into a community on a street corner and inviting the residents to come along. Sometimes it’s community clubs or whatever, sometimes through the schools and try and build some interest in people having what we term our community Fire Safe Groups, where a champion from the community will go out and invite a bunch of their neighbours in. It might be three, it might be 60 neighbours to come in, and we will go talk to them and work through with them in a series of workshops seven keys to survival. So, bushfire behaviour and plans and equipment and all that stuff … and possibly because we go out with the plan and the CFS into the community we are talking on a face to face in their environment situation so they’re quite happy to talk to us about their concerns and questions … They want to give us information and there’s a little less angst with us than perhaps with [the broader government] – they do recognise in the end that we’re part of the State Government but … People always assume that I’m a volunteer and not a staff member … But I think that’s where the trust comes from because it’s about that embedding in community, and that’s what the CFS volunteers are – our community, and they are trusted because it’s my Dad and my neighbour and … A lot of the lot of positive branding for CFS comes from volunteering too, and people see that as a real community spirit if you are prepared to give your time to save others’ livelihoods. That’s really the grassroots. People like that. (Female Community Engagement Officer) The entire staff, they work their work and then they go home and go to training because they’re still volunteers. On their holidays – they return from their holidays and volunteer all the way through their holidays and then their holidays are over and then they come back to work so there’s a bit of that going on. (Male Community Engagement Officer) In terms of people managing landscapes … and maximising opportunities … the City of Port Lincoln and District Council of Lower Eyre Peninsula is a big part of that actually because they’ve also got their planning in place and they’ve cooperated as part of that. SA Water and Council have both got fire management plans; we developed them cooperatively, we work cooperatively to implement those. So, I actually think from where we were 15 years ago to where we are now, it’s magnificent, it really is … Oh it’s a huge difference, a huge difference. (Male Environmental Officer)

This emphasizes a point raised in the focus groups that members of a community do not necessarily communicate with each other about bushfires. While there may be some good community networks in which information exchange on a wide range of subjects occurs, many residents pursue lives outside such networks and can remain ill-informed about community initiatives and general knowledge sharing.

research, that there is little uniformity in mitigation efforts across the range of household types. High levels of trust in fire authorities and strong place attachment are evident from questionnaires, interviews and focus group data. Some of the reported trust in the CFS may reflect unreasonable expectations of the fire services and the necessity to downplay individual respondent’s own lack of preparedness. Indeed, Bowman et al. (2013, p. 70) have argued that there tends to be an unrealistic public expectation that bushfires are always preventable and, therefore, if they do occur this must reflect poor management. The quote from the female Environmental Officer above (4.3.2) regarding ‘passion’ may also suggest that officials may be over-valuing the role of commitment in a catastrophic incident – just because the authorities would wish to effectively respond to a bushfire event does not mean that they are able to. As indicated in the report of the 2009 Victorian Bushfires Royal Commission, even many experienced firefighters were unprepared for the speed and severity of the bushfires that killed 173 people in the ‘Black Saturday’ fires (Parliament of Victoria, 2010). Lessons have been learnt from that experience by authorities but public expectations in the CFS during a bushfire event may still be

5. Discussion The principal strengths and weaknesses in bushfire preparation as perceived by local authorities and community members were organised into a concept diagram (Fig. 2). This visual representation of key findings highlights the disconnection between landholder preparedness (i.e., preparedness at the individual resident/household scale) and community readiness (i.e., as a group or groups of individuals living within a community). In other words, while assistance is prioritized for individuals to prepare for bushfires, this does not always translate to broader community readiness. The weaknesses in community actions reflect both the fragmented nature of modern society (see McLennan et al., 2019; Paveglio et al., 2018, 2019) and, a key finding of our 9

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Table 5 Main constraints identified, with examples of quotes. Challenge

Example quotes

Collaboration

I think we need to engage with local government better. (Male Fire Officer) We have to educate the planners; we have to get some education about fire ecology and fire management into South Australian universities. There is none, only post-grad – no under-grad really.

Capital and capacity

(Female Fire Officer) The treeline gets pretty messy like lots of leaves and branches falling off, so we do try to each year rake all that up and burn that off. We do try to do that regularly, but it doesn’t always happen. (Female local resident) Society is changed, and everyone used to know their neighbours and they would go and knock on their door and all that sort of stuff, but I think it should be probably encouraged – people talk to their neighbours a bit more and get to know what their bushfire plan is as well as ours. Now we’ve got a fire gate that goes to the next-door property in case we can’t get out the front… We’ve got a tractor, he’s got a tractor… I don’t know what else he’s got so … people in the area do need to get together and say “Hey look, let’s get together and talk about what will happen if a bushfire impacts our zone, what are we going to do? Who’s going to stay and fight?”

Stakeholder priorities

Policy and legal jurisdiction

(Male local resident) We’ve got to recognise that people are going to camp in tents and they’re going to camp in the natural environment and [the authorities] are thinking from a risk management perspective that they’ve got to try and get people in a fire-proof bunker tent, which isn’t [actually] the case; it’s the fact of recognising that part of integrating with the environment in Australia is that bushfires are going to happen. (Male Fire Officer) I want to find a way that we can keep our biodiversity, because I think it’s important, but I … believe there are some native plants that are locally native that would be great for encouraging native animals and insects and stuff like that, and helping that ecosystem going, but which will not go “whoosh” as much as some of the other plants do, as I mentioned, the “kerosene bush”. One of my jobs is actually to cut back my bay tree because I tested that, and that one goes up whoosh as well, so that needs to get cut down so it’s not so high … I try and keep things that I can within reach, so I can clean them up. (Female local resident) We’ve gone from managing hazard to managing asset. (Male Fire Officer) We’re responsible for spending our taxpayers’ money and we don’t have a legislative requirement to do that so we’re just going to [spend money on] what our ratepayers want … There are some areas obviously where that MFS/CFS dual role is so close that maybe the legislative requirement needs to cover those areas as well.

Increased bushfire risk

(Female Community Engagement Officer) You … start noticing longer heat wave stints which just means more patrolling days for us. The fire season doesn’t go from like December to February; it goes basically the whole year now. That was probably one of the biggest things I’ve noticed is, you know, fire you used to deal with only for a small period of time, whereas now it’s basically the whole year. (Female District Officer) being asked about the bushfire risk living next door to a large tract of scrub: Oh worth the risk! There’s a big, obviously a big clearing this side of it, so it makes it a little bit easier to protect and yeah … not overly worried, no!

Community misperceptions

(Male local resident) “Fire retardant” actually implies that it won't burn, and it’s what people [incorrectly] think. But if we say, “low flammable” [it’s more accurate] … it’s that whole defendable space thing… (Female Fire Officer) Nothing can prepare someone for a bushfire. There’s no amount of talking to the CFS or watching on TV – the noise, the heat, they get scary and it doesn’t even have to be a big bushfire for it to get scary.

Mistrust in environmental agencies

(Male local resident) There’s this blame because “Oh, you wouldn’t let me cut my trees down”, or there’s a blame because “You didn’t burn” or there’s a blame because “You did burn”, and partly because we’re a government agency, it’s easy to blame us. (Male Environmental Officer) We’re not sure what to believe at times. (Male local resident)

affecting individual preparedness levels. The presence of bushfire risk was generally known and accepted. Individuals who had worked to mitigate risk on their property through actions such as thinning vegetation or removing trees, felt more empowered and prepared. In contrast, individuals with little vegetation on their property, perhaps living on smaller blocks but still in medium and high fire-risk areas (as identified by the South Australian Government in conjunction with local councils), and those who appear less physically or mentally able to undertake mitigation activities themselves

appeared to feel (and be) less bushfire ready. It is concerning that those living on smaller properties were significantly less likely to prepare a Bushfire Survival Plan or regularly update household members on their Plan, given the development of a Plan is heavily promoted by the CFS (2017). Similarly, owners of smaller properties were less likely to prepare fire-fighting kits and protective clothing, or obtain battery-powered radios, all of which assist residents when threatened by a bushfire and may be important regardless of the property size. Residents living on smaller properties tended to rate their bushfire 10

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Fig. 2. Concept diagram.

away from an emphasis on the self-reliance of at-risk communities towards a greater degree of responsibility for government emergency management agencies” (McLennan and Handmer, 2012, p.1). While this contrasts to global trends placing responsibility for risk management on at-risk communities, it reiterates the need for greater attention on how we balance responsibilities (McCaffrey and Olsen, 2012; Prior and Eriksen, 2012). In referring to the notion of community in the LEP, it is important to recognise that there is both a strong attachment to place exhibited by many residents as well as the existence of relational community groups based on shared interests and issues (see Roberts et al., 2017). The latter creates fragmentation within populations, which can mean that sub-groups may need to be contacted in different ways and messages may need various forms of reinforcement to produce the desired impact. However, our survey of residents revealed a high commonality in terms of individuals identifying closely with their locality. This attachment to place has been observed in other rural areas both within Australia and other rural parts of the developed world (Anton and Lawrence, 2016; Cutter et al., 2016), and could form a vital link across a population to generate further collective responses to risk. It is not only the actions that landholders undertake on their property that help build an empowered community, but how they interact with other community members. For example, using ‘phone trees’ (a tool whereby a number of telephone calls are made to share information with others in the community) and knowing the plans of one’s neighbours are two ways in which some LEP residents already undertake active steps to enhance community readiness (Arnold, 2015). These types of action and others built on trust, place attachment, and broader meanings of place can help raise social capital and increase community readiness (Paveglio et al., 2012, 2015). Participation in Community Fire Safe groups increases the uptake of written plans and the undertaking of preparation activities through sharing stories with others and seeing how neighbours prepare, with the benefits of improving communication channels and bringing people together to assist each other (Every et al., 2016). Preparedness is both a collective and individual challenge (Ford and King, 2015). While there are a suite of successful education and engagement programs and information available that are effectively communicated to

management knowledge lower than those on larger properties. They may not have progressed through the stages of preparedness described by Prochaska et al. (1992), so for example, they may have minimal awareness and no intention to change behaviour, or some awareness but no commitment to change. This may also reflect the fact that those living on smaller properties may have less flammable vegetation on their property or in the immediate vicinity, and so feel far less threatened by bushfires than those on larger properties. Knowing about bushfire management and being concerned by the possibility of future bushfires appears to be less important to many on smaller, suburbantype properties. Although we argue that the personal stages of preparedness do not directly translate to overall community readiness (as communities comprise groups of many individual landholders), identifying which groups of people are not as advanced in their level of readiness will assist agencies to engage and interact with communities overall. Specifically targeting awareness campaigns at groups of residents in relation to their stage of proximate development in bushfire knowledge and understanding may prove useful in empowering a wider range of residents, as some peers will copy the behaviours of others (Noar et al., 2007). Targeting of communication also needs to distinguish between those on rural/farm blocks and those on suburban blocks, with their unique challenges and opportunities. Indeed, people living on standard residential blocks were less likely to be concerned about, plan or prepare for a bushfire than those living on larger rural blocks (see also Every et al., 2016). Community readiness might be improved by identifying opportunities for everyone to do something, regardless of whether they have vegetation on their land, live on large properties, or live adjacent to vegetation. This approach might focus on enhancing a community’s sense of collective responsibility and self-efficacy or reinforcing place attachment through involvement in local environmental groups or community volunteering programs. Our findings suggest that engaged residents can be useful facilitators for building collective responsibility, with fire authorities noting how reliant they are on community members to mitigate risk. Yet, it should be acknowledged that there are different views regarding the notion of shared responsibility in bushfire risk management. Following the devastating bushfires in Victoria in 2009, the ensuing Royal Commission “reframed responsibility-sharing 11

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residents by trusted fire authorities (identified as key strengths in Fig. 2), this alone is unlikely to adequately motivate action or behaviour change (Brummel, 2010). While at the individual or household scale the processes and actions undertaken are producing a positive response (stemming from the strengths portrayed in Fig. 2), at the community scale responses to key messages may be inadequate (Smit and Wandel, 2006). Understanding the scale (individual, community or broader) at which actions occur and the differences between community members could help streamline efforts to manage bushfires. Clearly, in addition to the promotion of writing individual household plans, it would also be useful for communities to plan and reflect collectively on how to prepare for the hazard and respond in the event of a bushfire. We do recognize, however, that for most communities, this is not a practical solution, given the differences in interest, availability and capability of residents. The points raised above regarding the need to engage citizens in developing community readiness reflect a growing view from the emergency management sector that information provision alone is insufficient to increase community preparation and that more engaging, participatory approaches are needed (Frandsen et al., 2011), though this may compete with the conservative nature of fire management authorities (Neale, 2018). Community participation needs to be seen as a fundamental component of disaster risk reduction (UNISDR, 2015), though supplementing rather than replacing more traditional means of advancing community preparedness, may be the best way to achieve that goal. It is perhaps timely that we reconsider the notion of “community responsibility” and accept that while we need to address bushfire safety on a landscape basis, rather than through individual households alone, it will remain challenging and arguably impossible to exert control and influence over a large, diverse community. One potential avenue for further development of community collaboration is via current strong methods of engagement, such as established networks or the Internet. Only 13% of questionnaire survey respondents used the Internet as one of the three most frequent means for finding out about bushfire prevention. The proportion rose to 21.5% with respect to information about biodiversity conservation. There are a range of relatively underexplored opportunities for collaboration through on-line user-generated content involving social media, photo and video sharing platforms, and online map-making software (Haworth et al., 2015). For example, Haworth et al. (2016) argue that preparedness can be enhanced by individuals making use of volunteered geographic information (VGI) from participatory mapping workshops (Goodchild, 2007) to identify fire risks and strategies on a broader scale. Obtaining adequate participation is a key limitation to VGI, with many community members unwilling to share information or attend meetings (Paschen and Beilin, 2017). There are also issues regarding a lack of data quality assurance, responsibility for data management, liability, security, and the digital divide (Haworth and Bruce, 2016). Nevertheless, VGI may be able to supplement traditional community consultation and forums, creating flexible two-way dialogue between individuals and the authorities, thereby reducing conventional limitations and inefficiencies (Howarth, 2016; Haworth et al., 2015; 2018). When promoting greater community collaboration, it is important to note that the social fragmentation that limits community cohesion and collective action, can apply even within a single household. From our interviews, clear differences emerged between attitudes to bushfire mitigation and what to do in the event of a bushfire between men and women. This reinforces findings by Proudley (2008; 2009), including through research on the Black Tuesday fires on the LEP, which highlighted that in the majority of households where both genders are represented it was the husband/father who acted as head of household and who made the decisions as to what to do when faced by a bushfire. This was especially so if the man was a member of the CFS, which is a largely male-dominated service (Goodman and Proudley, 2008). These findings were repeated in our own survey, with women reporting that they often deferred to a male partner regarding decisions with respect to bushfire preparation and planning. In both our study and the earlier work, women were more likely to favour early evacuation rather than

staying to fight a fire, with fighting the fire often seen as ‘men’s business’ (Eriksen, 2014a; Tyler and Fairbrother, 2013a; 2013b, 2018). In developing plans for greater community collaboration in bushfire planning therefore, there may be a need for initiatives specifically targeted at women to ensure that the voices of women are properly represented and that they can play a full part in the development of community-based decisions (Eriksen, 2014b). 6. Conclusion Participants in our study generally felt the bushfire prevention behaviours they undertake individually have, or could have, a positive effect on risk mitigation. Many had high levels of perceived control over risk mitigation measures on their own property, further enhancing their capacities to behave effectively as individuals. While most individuals reported high levels of preparatory action, maintenance and consolidation, the results suggest a disconnection between individual bushfire preparedness and broader scale community readiness as perceived by residents and authorities alike. Despite the presence of many strengths relating to communication with individual residents, such as good programs and information, dedicated staff and trust in agencies and authorities, those approaches do not equate to broad community engagement and readiness for bushfire. One of the great challenges of fire management remains the complex mosaic of landholder boundaries representing many different attitudes and abilities relating to fire. Although some residents appeared less prepared than others, or were critical of neighbours’ preparations, criticisms need to be viewed with an element of caution as it is difficult to assess preparation by examining isolated tangible components alone. The relationships between emotional and physical preparations for evacuation also need to be considered. While this study was confined to the LEP in SA, similar findings have been reported in the Adelaide-Mount Lofty region (Bardsley et al., 2018), and it is reasonable to suggest that similar hazard management challenges exist in other peri-urban areas around the world. There are key challenges to be addressed for bushfire risk mitigation on the LEP associated with increased likelihood of bushfires, landholder and agency capacity, the physical application of management responsibilities, and the various issues described above regarding preparedness. The CFS has made significant attempts to inform and educate the public about bushfire risk. While there has been a focus on properties with vegetation that could be highly susceptible to fire, smaller properties have been covered in specially arranged community sessions by CFS officials and in letterbox-drop campaigns (CFS, 2019). However, the authors observed first-hand that attendance at local community sessions is often poor. Some of the challenges may be addressed by enhancing a community’s sense of collective responsibility, by providing residents in different housing environments with a range of both physical and psychological ways to prepare and, most importantly, build on the strengths that foster increased social capital, including trust and place attachment to support collective action and readiness. Despite significant advances in individual landholder physical preparedness, other key elements such as emotional preparedness and overall community readiness are lagging and need more attention. The creation of landscapes that reduce the risk of fire not only relies upon engaged individuals but also a pervasive sense of shared ownership of the challenge of living in a high-risk bushfire zone. Acknowledgements Sincere thanks to the Lower Eyre Peninsula community for participating in this research and special thanks to Di Delaine for her contribution to the study. As part of an Australian Research Council Linkage Grant (LP130100406), funding was provided by the Australian Research Council, the SA Department of Environment, Water and Natural Resources, the Eyre Peninsula Natural Resource Management 12

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Board and the Adelaide and Mount Lofty Natural Resource Management Board. Support in-kind was provided by the Country Fire Service. The views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the Australian Research Council or any organisation listed. The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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