Developing a Shared Understanding of Bushfire Risk in Victoria

Working in collaboration with the Victorian Community First Program, the project will use a behavioural science approach to explore how practitioners and communities perceive bushfire risks and risk-reduction strategies and to recommend ways to bridge important differences in these perspectives. These insights could help land and fire management agencies to engage more effectively with communities, fostering preparedness and response in bushfire-prone areas across Victoria.

What do we plan to do?

Drawing on the Mental Models Approach to Risk Communication, the project will involve:

• Conducting in-depth interviews and workshops with fire management practitioners and local residents in bushfire-prone areas.
• Developing high-level models of bushfire risk from both practitioner and community perspectives.
• Identifying and prioritising differences in knowledge and beliefs that could influence bushfire preparedness and response.

By the end of the project, we aim to deliver practical tools and insights to support effective engagement with communities around bushfire risk in Victoria. These will include sector presentations and research-to-practice materials designed to build capabilities in risk communication.

We expect to share initial findings by the third quarter of 2025.

This project is supported with funding provided by the Australian Government in partnership with the States and Territories under the National Partnership Agreement for Disaster Risk Reduction.

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