Community attitudes to bushfire safety

CFA recently conducted a telephone survey of 1024 households. The survey investigated community attitudes and behaviours toward bushfire safety in fire prone areas around metropolitan Melbourne.

An abbreviated executive summary is reproduced below.

A full copy of the survey results can be downloaded from the CFA website.

To see a media release about the results, click here.


Abbreviated Executive Summary

Ever obtained information about Bushfire

• 93.5% of respondents had at some time received information about bushfire safety.
• The two main sources of information were the local fire brigade (82.2%) and mail or letterbox drops (79.6%).

Attendance at Bushfire safety meetings

• Just over a third (34.6%) of all respondents have not attended any bushfire safety meetings in the past five years while 39.5% have attended either one meeting (16%) or 2-3 meetings (23.5%).

Expectation of firetruck or firefighting aircraft assisting in property protection

• 56.6% of respondents said they thought it likely or very likely that a fire truck would come to protect their property in the event of a bushfire.
• 51.2% of respondents thought it likely or very likely that a firefighting aircraft would come to their property to protect it if there was a bushfire.

Bushfire plan

• 90.6% of respondents say they do have a bushfire plan in place. Although the large majority say they have a plan, important aspects of the plan preparation appear to be absent.

Bushfire actions

• 33.5% of respondents would stay and protect their house and property.
• A further 22.6%% would do what they could to protect their property but leave if threatened by fire, and 17.2% would wait until advised what to do by the Emergency Services.
• 21.5% would leave as soon as they became aware there was a fire in the area and 2.4% indicated they would leave the area on high risk days.

Ways of getting information about bushfires

• In the event of a bushfire, 58.9% of respondents would listen to ABC radio to get information about what was happening. 35.6% would ring the local fire brigade and 34.1% would contact friends or neighbours.