Incentives for self-evacuation: a panacea for bushfire fatalities in the Australian bushfire-prone areas
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Date
2024
Authors
Adedokun, O.
Egbelakin, T.
Gajendran, T.
Sher, W.
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Journal article
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International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, 2024; 104(104361):1-21
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Recurring bushfire disasters have shaped the Australian landscape for over 110 years. Despite this, there has been a rise in the migration of residents into bushfire-prone areas, resulting in increased fatalities. This study investigated incentives that could encourage householders to self-evacuate from bushfire-prone areas during bushfires to address this issue. An inductive approach was adopted, utilizing thirty semi-structured interviews with participants in the southeastern part of New South Wales because the region was the most severely affected during the 2019/2020 Black Summer bushfires. The study found that about 41% of residents needed to be aware of existing incentives. In addition, we identified 13 potential incentives that could encourage early self-evacuation during bushfires. These incentives include information and communication, adequacy of resourcing rural fire service, bushfire education programmes, vegetation management, emergency accommodation, financial assistance, access roads availability, security and property protection, affordable insurance coverage, alternative power supply, property preparation assistance, return access to the property, and improved development approval procedures. The findings provided valuable insights into the incentives that could influence householders’ decisions to self-evacuate during bushfires. The recommendations were based on these findings, suggesting that future studies consider a broader range of participants and geographical areas to enhance the generalizability of findings. The outcomes can be a valuable reference for policymakers and emergency agencies to develop and implement strategies to encourage early self-evacuation during bushfires, thus reducing fatalities.
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Data source: Supplementary data, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijdrr.2024.104361
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Copyright 2024 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)